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DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 
FRANCIS S. SALTUS. 



Note — 500 copies only printed for America 
and England. Each numbered as issued. 
Type distributed. 



No. 





a-JZ- 







DREAMS AFTER SUNSET 

POEMS 



BY 



FRANCIS S. SALTUS 



* * * 

I ISO! W l 

BUFFALO 
CHARLES WELLS MOULTON 

1892 



75* 1 






Copyright, 1891, 

BY 

F. H. SALT US 



Printed by C. W. Moilton, Buffalo, N. Y 



FROM 

The Spirit of the Author 

Now amongst the countless Hosts of Shadows, 

TO 

THOMAS STEPHENS COLLIER, 
WITH heavenly love 

AND GRATITUDE. 



The buds- of hope, the flowers of joy, 
And life's rich fruit, were tasted all, 

While time was twining round my brow 
A snowy wreath — Death's coronal. 



CONTENTS. 

I*AGE 

Life i 

Lacquer-Work 5 

A Sky Dream 6 

Sleep 10 

Mood of Madness 11 

Hands 15 

Noah's Ark 16 

Goya 19 

To Helena 24 

Love Song 25 

The Ideal 27 

A Courtesan's Whim 28 

Escurial 29 

To J. S. Thebaud, M. D 30 

Snow Song 34 

Defrauded 35 

Souvenir 37 

Answers 38 

Jena 39 

The Old Street in Limoges 40 

A Soul May Linger There 43 

For Thee 44 

Austerlitz 46 

Tete-a-Tete . . . . : 47 

The Awakening 48 

My Faith 49 



xii CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Profile 53 

Dolce far Niente 54 

To Yulma 65 

Certainty 66 

A 67 

A Fragment 68 

Confession 73 

Sonnet Improvise" 74 

Linda and Pasquin 75 

Moon-Music 91 

Turquerie 92 

Sonnet 94 

Fantaisie 95 

Sonnet 101 

Papa's Asleep 102 

Affinities 105 

Sonnet 106 

Bah! 107 

Perfume 109 

My Lover 110 

Sonnet 113 

Perhaps 114 

Frothings: Millers and Coquettes 116 

To My Father on His Birthday 117 

Influence 118 

Souvenir 119 

Henry Irving 121 

E. L. Davenport as "Hamlet" 122 

As "Othello" 123 

As "Macbeth" 124 



CONTENTS. xiii 

PAGE 

E. L. Davenport as "Richard III" 125 

As "Richelieu" 126 

As "Sir Giles" 127 

Carlos Sobrino vi.28 

Francisco Mazzoleni 129 

Pietro Bignardi 130 

To Karl Formes 131 

Carl Maria Von Weber 132 

Charles Gounod 133 

To Sarah Bernhart 134 

Geovanni Tagliapietra 135 

To Victor Hugo 136 

Charles Baudelaire 137 

Ferdinand Hiller 138 

Gerard de Nerval 139 

Landscape 140 

The Heart's Sad Song 141 

Landscape 142 

Zaida 143 

Quatrain 144 

Moods of Madness 145 

Tete a Tete 149 

To 150 

Landscape 151 

Consumption 153 

The Preacher 154 

Niagara 156 

Blue 157 

Sonnet 158 

Columbia to Cuba 159 



xiv CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Thejungfrau 164 

Dream of Ice 165 

Sonnet 168 

Song 169 

Sonnet 171 

Two Love Stories 172 

Sonnet 174 

Eyes 175 

Sonnet ..." 178 

Kisses 179 

Language 181 

Punishment 182 

Rome 183 

By Moonlight 184 

La Grizette 185 

To Napoleon 186 

Small Minds 187 

Sonnet 189 

To Anna Saltus 190 

The Dying Star 191 

The North Sea Maid 193 

Good Friday 194 

The Gnome 197 

Fantasy 200 

Thine Eyes 204 

To Marie B 205 

Nebulosa 206 

Flowers of the Harem 208 

Effet de Neige 210 

Souvenir 213 



CONTENTS. xv 

PAGE 

Attar Gul 214 

Napoleon's Gift 217 

Unfavored 219 

Yellow *22i 

The Monkey 222 

Moods of Madness 223 

Bamboo 225 

To a Spider 228 

Heinrich Heine 229 

The Japanese Fan 231 

An Answer 232 

Too Late 256 



LIFE.* 

'Tis for some a grand poem of pleasure, 

'Tis for poets a poem of pain; 
And for others a scintillant treasure, 

A blessing, a curse, or a bane; 
'Tis for many a ramble and leisure, 

And for some 'tis a thing of disdain. 

There is ever the failure of trying, 

And the swarms of vague manifold fears; 

There's the farce of our birth and our dying, 
The burlesque of our wretched careers. 

There is little of value save sighing, 

There is nothing of worth but our tears! 

There are false joys, and riches, ambition, 
There is Love, there is Fame, there is Art, 

Ere we grapple them comes inanition, 
Death's shadows can everything part — 

All our life-aims are aims of perdition, 
And with hopes that are hopeless we start. 



*Written at the age of eighteen. 

B 



DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Wise is he who a man and a chooser 

Spurns Life's book and its pages of days; 

Wise is he who is no man's accuser, 

Who laughs not, nor sings not, nor prays. 

Wise is he who sees all like a muser 

Through vague tenebrous shadows of greys. 

Be content and live on, nothing claiming, 
Shun the mass and their impotent creeds. 

See with eye neither lauding nor blaming 
Acts of crime or magnificent deeds, 

Neither asking, nor hoping, nor aiming 
For joys that are barren of seeds. 

If we lived through long epochs and ages, 
If we saw but a century of peace, 

Had we time to calm murmurs and rages, 
Had we time to make wickedness cease; 

We might barter our faith to the sages, 
We might force evil thoughts to decrease. 

But we live but an hour and learn not 
If that hour will be short or be long; 

Shall we rush on ahead, shall we turn not, 
Shall our voice be a sigh or a song ? 

Shall we love not, nor hate not, nor spurn not, 
Who can guide to the right from the wrong ? 



LIFE. 

Can we live without error or blunder ? 

Can we know when to come and to go ? 
Why love, when Death's sickle asunder 

Cleaveth down ev'ry love with a blow ? 
If the spring turns to winter, why wonder, 

Or if roses give way to the snow ? 

Every sunset in colorful glory 
Must bow to the menacing night; 

Every moon in its opal sheen, hoary, 
Is chased by the dawn's kiss of white; 

From chaos there sprang but one story — 
Our story of ruin and blight ! 

Can we aught of the infinite borrow, 
Can we plunge in the secrets of glooms ? 

Can we unveil the formless to-morrow, 
Can we sniff at the future's perfumes ? 

Can we say that in joy or in sorrow 

We will reach the pale portals of tombs ? 

Yet like lost lambs, wolf-scented, we tremble; 

We know not, yet would know and groan; 
We worship our gods and assemble 

In temples of marble and stone; 
We pray, hope, fear, lie and dissemble, 

Yet we err through Life's vortex alone ! 



DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

So is wise he who nothing remembers, 

Who can banish, forget and ignore; 
Who can crush out the slow-burning embers 

Of fire-thoughts that burned well in yore; 
Who alike blends the Mays with Decembers, 

Who cares naught of the past to restore. 

Wise is he who regrets not his gladness, 
His blisses of childhood now dead; 

Wise is he who can laugh at his madness 

When youth's ardor ruled heart and ruled head; 

Wise is he who finds pleasure in sadness — 
In the memories of tears that were shed. 






LACQUER-WORK. 



LACQUER-WORK. 

The city I love is in Japan, 

With streets spread out like a lady's fan; 

High towers of porcelain, white and blue, 

O'ertop the cottages of bamboo. 

Pagodas lacquered enchant my eye, 

Their kaolin steeples pierce the sky. 

Rare birds, with plumage all gold and red, 

Chirp sweetest melodies o'er my head. 

Strange idols, carved, of costume quaint, 

Grin blandly on me from out their paint. 

A music, not sad, yet dreamy, swells: 

Its rhythm keeps time with silv'ry bells. 

****** 

My lovely idol is hidden here, 

With inch-long eyes and a gaze sincere; 

Her feet are so small she cannot walk, 

Her breast is as white as snow or chalk; 

Her laugh is like sunshine, full of glee, 

And her sweet breath smells like fresh-made tea. 



DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



A SKY DREAM. 

I dreamt, one lovely summer night. 
That a wee robin, swift and bright, 

In through my window fluttered; 
And as I watched it in surprise, 
It gazed upon me with soft eyes, 

And these words slowly uttered: 

II Excuse me for my long delay, 
I have been miles upon my way, 

And really have not tarried; 
I am so tired I can not speak, 
But take this letter from my beak, 

And see who's to be married! " 

Then flying off through shadows drear, 
It rested in my garden near; 

I hardly breathed to listen, — 
And in my open hand I saw, 
Still overcome by nameless awe, 

A lovely sunbeam glisten! 



A SKY DREAM. 

And written there in flaming lines, 
With specks of light and mystic signs, 

I read with eyes delighted, 
That the great wedding of the sun 
With the chaste moon, had just begun, 

And I had been invited. 

And in a postscript I was told 
The letter in my hand to hold, 

And when the clock struck seven, 
To seek the fragrant woodlands, where 
The dewy roses scent the air, 

And look up into Heaven. 

So forth I went, and saw with pride, 
The pale moon blushing like a bride, 

Draped in a cloud-veil tender; 
Escorted by the sun, whose glare 
Shone on her face, supremely fair, 

In fascinating splendor. 

Behind them trooped in gorgeous state 
And fiery robes the planets great, 

Their ministers and sages; 
And far beyond, in skies of flame, 
With twinkling eyes and bright feet came 

The stars, their merry pages; 



DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

While brilliant meteors, too, were there, 
Roaming about the radiant air, 

Most luminous and splendid; 
And awful comets everywhere 
Trailed round the scintillating pair, 

With long tails nicely blended. 

Then hosts of lesser lights gleamed forth, 
The constellations of the North, 

Venus and Ursus Major; 
To compliment the happy sun, 
Jest with the moon and have fine fun 

By trying to enrage her. 

But she remained upon her throne 

Of purple clouds by light winds blown, 

Serene and without passion; 
While to the hosts of minor stars, 
The sun threw beams and golden bars 

In generous, kingly fashion. 

The bride had jewels rare and bright. 
Presents from some far satellite, 

And rings, the gift of Saturn; 
While Sirius sent a ruby ray, 
To wear for morning negligee, 

Of most delicious pattern. 



A SKY DREAM. 

And every royal asteroid, 

To hail their king and queen o'erjoyed, 

Had given their coruscations; 
While to do honor on their side, 
With one another planets vied 

In grand illuminations. 

The lightning blazed along the sky 
To lume the grand procession by, 

While from above and under, 
The welkin echoed loud and long 
With the reverberating song 

Of grave, melodious thunder. 

And as I watched the wondrous sight, 
Far in the voids of endless night 

The glorious throng departed. 
And I awoke from dreams of space, 
Only to find that on my face 

A ray of sunshine darted. 



DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



SLEEP. 

Subtle softness soulward stealing, 
Sleep! sweet savior still sincere. 

Silent, soothing, sorrow-sealing, 
Sombre shadow, sad, severe! 



MOOD OF MADNESS. 



MOOD OF MADNESS. 

Death heard at last my ceaseless prayer 
For peace, and stifled all her sighs; 

The one I did not love; my fair 

Fond wife I could not learn to prize, 

Lay dead with roses in her hair, 
Lay dead with pity in her eyes. 

Pity for me who loved her not, 
Pity for me who marred her life; 

I who was weary of my lot, 

I who was haunted by that wife, 

That sweet one who my sins forgot, 
Who calmed the hell-hates in me rife. 

I murdered her by pain and dread, 
I drugged the young love in her frame; 

Before me now she lieth dead, 
And yet I feel no burning shame. 

I merely hate the hour we wed, 
I merely know I gained my aim. 



12 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

She died when died the sullen day, 

Her breath was caught by wondering night, 

Out in the dismal twilight grey, 

Her martyred soul found rest in flight. 

I laughed to see her fade away. 

I laughed to see her cheeks grow white. 

And yet with all her heart of hearts 
She worshipped me in noble ways, 

A love that no misgiving parts, 
A love that weeps, and soothes and prays, 

A love like balm upon great smarts, 

Hot loves of nights, calm loves of days. 

When priests had gone, when all was still, 
I shut her in her coffin's gloom, 

And then without one pitying thrill, 
Uiged by the awful magnet, doom, 

I placed her dainty body chill 
Under a sofa in the room. 

And over it I made a bed 

Of silks and flowers and spices rare; 

Around the gloomy room I spread 
A hundred lights of dazzling glare; 

Lights perfume-reeking, incense-fed, 
Lights gold and wavy like her hair! 



MOOD OF MADNESS. 13 

And on a table crushed with gold, 

With plate and glass of hand-work fine, 
With fruit and dainties all its hold, 

I set rich food and crimson wine. 
Sweet wines of fire to warm the cold; 

The utter cold of hearts like mine. 
****** 
I loved a creature with great eyes 

Like startled fawn's, alive with light, 
Purple and passionate of dyes, 

Tipped with an awful flame of night. 
A beauty with a world of sighs 

To lavish on my life-long blight. 

And I had loved her thro' long days 

With fiendish loves that wild dreams gave; 

Mirrored my soul was in the rays 
Of her black eye-souls, and a slave 

Was I, when her sweet words of praise 
Set my hot, tingling flesh to crave. 

And on the night my wife had died, 

She came to sup with me and feast; 
She, flushed with splendor, I, with pride, 

Laughed as we kissed, while mirth increased, 
There by the lonely corpse's side. 

The last of all my thoughts; the least. 



i 4 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

And thro' that summer midnight blue, 
The moon poured in its tranquil rays, 

Like steel-besilvered, cold of hue 

Down on the lamp's hot, smoking blaze. 

The fumes of blood-wine fiercer grew, 
The air re-echoed Bacchic lays. 

My pompous, peerless beauty leaned, 

Wine-drugged and yearning on my breast, 
Her thin, long silken lashes screened 

The wonders of her eyes' unrest. 
While sudden in me rose the Fiend! 

While from me shivering flew the Blest. 
****** 
Lust reveled in the tainted air, 

And mocked the spirit and her sighs, 
While she I did not love, my fair 

Fond wife I could not learn to prize, 
Lay dead with roses in her hair, 

Lay dead with pity in her eyes. 



HANDS. 15 



HANDS. 

How dear the hand that chases pain away, 
With the soft touch of Florence Nightingale, 
And dear is friendship's hand that should not fail, 

But ah, how often does its grasp betray! 

There are firm hands that in mad battle slay, 

Hands that spread midnight poisons, parched and pale, 
Low, venal ones, whose pens like serpents trail, 

And holy ones that succor, soothe, allay. 

Sweet is the pressure of an honest hand; 

Tender and true when dying parents bless, 
Awful, when men livid with murder stand, 

Noble, when thousands some great wrong suppress! 
But I love most the little hand that fanned 

My heart to love when all was wretchedness. 



16 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



NOAH'S ARK. 

AN INCIDENT IN MY CHILDHOOD. 

I remember once a Christmas day, 

When, though drowsy still, I rose^to see 

What Santa Claus, in his kindly way, 

Had brought from Toyland to give to me. 

My poor old nurse was sleeping sound, 
And the room was very still and dark, 

But on the table I quickly found 

A pile of toys and a big M Noah's Ark." 

I knew I did wrong in acting so, 
But I was a little wayward chit, 

And my nursie snored so very loud 
That I put the gas up one wee bit; 

I opened the lid with greatest care, 

'Twas hard to move, for it was brand new, 

And the first I spied was a Polar bear, 
And a lovely, gray-tailed kangaroo. 



NOAH'S ARK. 

I kissed them both, tho' I don't know why; 

And then I pulled out Renard, the fox, 
With a bushy tail and cunning eye, 

And then a zebra, and then an ox. 

I was sore afraid when the tiger came, 
He looked so fierce at the poor giraffe, 

But I tied him up to make him tame, 

And oh! how the monkey made me laugh. 

And then the lion, how brave and grand, 
He didn't bite when I stroked his mane, 

But he seemed to want to eat my hand, 
And I didn't play with him again. 

The elephant was a real dear pet, 
As cunning and nice as he could be, 

And I made him dance a minuet 

With the antelope and the chimpanzee. 

Then I found old Noah, and Japhet, too, 
Who lived in the Ark — such funny men — 

And a pretty dove that couldn't coo, 

But was twice as sweet as the speckled hen. 

And, can you believe? there were two flies, 
And a scowling wild boar with big tusks; 
c 



17 



18 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

I wanted to give them a great surprise, 
And fed them on ginger-snaps and rusks. 

But I forgot all about it then, 

For down in this lovely Ark I found 

A serpent that stings poor Indian men, 
A brindled cow and a spotted hound. 

I don't know how long I'd been that night 

Playing with tiger and lamb and bear, 
But when I turned it was broad daylight, 

And I saw my papa smiling there. 
♦ **•**■* 

Now I am old, with sad regret, 

I see life pass from me, dull and dark, 
But through years of pain I linger yet 

On the memories fond of that Noah's Ark! 



GOYA. 



19 



GOYA.* 

Thy bitter brush was lightning-tipped, 

And dipped 
In blacks of night, in golds of day; 
The violent nightmares of thy whim, 
Pain-dim, 
Were wont in hideous worlds to stray, 
In troubled seas of fright to swim. 

Thine hues, betinged with tears of gall, 

Recall 
Tne horrors of the Schwarzwald's eves; 
The mystery of eerie skies 
Low, plies 
Over thy canvas, moans and grieves 
A ghastly music, born of sighs. 

Behold the tint of clouds that swoon! 

The moon 
Leers on a Ashless, phantom lake; 

Gaunt, threatening shadows hellward loom. 
The gloom 

* A celebrated Spanish painter and caricaturist. Died 1828. 



20 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Chills the damned glance of fiends who slake 
Their thirsts with mud, whom fires consume. 

Ever the nacarat gleams of fire, 

Red, dire, 
Light the wild wonders of thy work; 
Visions that pall, with colors cursed, 
Now burst 
On riven gaze, or lie and lurk, 

The last more harrowing than the first! 

Yet in thy better, happier hours, 

Fair flowers, 
Fruits, and queen-bodied virgins smile — 
From out a golden florid paint, 
Dream-faint 
Chimeras, born to calm awhile 

The terrors of thy ceaseless plaint. 

Thy dark-orbed sirens of Seville 

Can thrill: 
The majos' velvet jacket gleams; 

Or, from Granada's sculptured halls, 
There falls 
The soft, pale light of marble dreams: 
Thy dormant Muse forgets her galls. 



GO YA. 21 



See there again the plaza full! 

The bull 
Swelters in foaming sweat and gore; 
The echo of ten thousand throats, 
Parched, dotes 
Over the dying beast. Strife-sore, 
A people every quiver notes. 

We see the grand and brutal fun, 

The sun 
Pouring its rays on eager girls, 

Slow-eyed, who beg th' espada's skill 
To kill; 
But torture first the bull in furls — 
Of silk, before his blood turns still. 

Colorful glories of old Spain, 

Long lain 
For ages in the glooms of time, 

Thou hast revived with potent brush, 
The flush 
Of all that golden, glorious clime, 
With tintings masterful and lush. 

Some sad, vague, cloistral solitude, 
As viewed 



DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

By mutinous moonbeams, greeting clouds, 
Shows sights our modern fancies shun: 
A nun, — 

Robed in long, white, cross-streaked shrouds, 
Waiting till vesper mass be done. 

She steals without in gardens dark, 

The spark — 
Of watching eyes directs her feet; 

Her chaplet's beads 'neath cowl of monk, 
Love-drunk, 
Are kisst upon her bosom's sweet, 
A fragile form in sin has sunk. — 

The shivering shadows of the rack, 

Dark, black, 
Loom on thy canvas, where, in fear, 
Some pallid sufferer is dragged, 
Iron-gagged, 
Through corridors, dank, humid, drear, 
With jagged stone, dirt-mingled, flagged. 

The venoms of thy musings foul 

Oft scowl 
Savagely from their colored cloaks. 



GOYA. 23 



Like Ribera, thy genius rare — 
Of prayer, 
The myths of noisome thought invokes, 
For what was vile thou madest fair. 

Great dreamer! let thy sleep be light. 

The bright 
Aurora of reviving art 

Will warm thy soul's forsaken rest. 
Thou, blest 
With gems of fancy and of heart, 
Will live in Spain among the best! 

Madrid, 1872. 



24 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



TO HELENA. 

Whene'er I gaze upon thy beauteous face, 
Free from the touch of all terrestrial taint, 
With soft smiles haloed, like a praying saint, 

A beaming scrap of Paradise's grace, 

Within its charming contour I can trace 

A long-lost look that memory scarce can paint- 
Something ethereal and divinely faint, 

That cannot appertain unto our race. 

I feel that by some wondrous avatar, 

Some strange metempsychosis most sublime, 
Bright Aphrodite, rising from the sea, 
Has gazed upon thee from her love-lit star; 
And, eager to transmit her charms to time, 
Has made Greek Helen breathe again in thee. 



LOVE SONG. 25 



LOVE SONG. 

Recallest thou my fair brunette, 

Our bygone loves beneath the willows, 

Kissed by the Rhone, with serpolette 
And fragrant fern for pillows ? 

Dost thou recall the golden bees, 

Who thought thy pretty hands were flowers ? 
And how they hummed around our knees, 

Throughout the sultry summer hours ? 

Dost thou recall those eves of June ? 

The burning words, the mad caresses, 
Dost thou not see that long-dead moon 

Shiver pale silver on thy tresses ? 

And does fond memory's charm still hold 
Thy soul to-day? Dost thou remember 

Our perfect passion in the gold, 
Red forests of September ? 

The vivid memories of those nights, 
And listless days of love and laughter, 



26 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Will cheer life's care with new delights, 
And move our souls to tears hereafter. 

Surely all joy bears bitter fruit, 

Is not that Past recalled with sorrow, 

Now, that thy kiss would filth pollute, 
And I for murder die to-morrow! 



THE IDEAL. 



27 



THE IDEAL. 

Toil on, poor muser, to attain that goal 

Where Art conceals its grandest, noblest prize; 

Count every tear that dims your aching eyes, 
Count all the years that seem as days, and roll 

The death-tides slowly on; count all your sighs; 
Search the wide, wondrous earth from pole to pole, 
Tear unbelief from out your martyred soul; 

Succumb not, chase despondency, be wise; 
Work, toil, and struggle with the brush or pen, 
Revel in rhyme, strain intellect and ken; 

Live on and hope despite man's sceptic leers; 
Praise the Ideal with your every breath, 

Give it life, youth and glory, blood and tears, 
And to possess it pay its tribute — Death. 



28 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



A COURTESAN'S WHIM. 

" Etje vous verrais nn du hautjeisques en bas, 
Que toute votre pean ne, me tenter ait pas." 

— Moliere. 

To calm desires that in my soul increase, 
Delicious boys with poems of blond hair, 
Supple, dusk-eyed, whose eager kisses rare 

Are sweet as dew, no longer bring me peace. 

I tire of the effeminate charm of Greece, 

These Apollonian men with broad breasts bare, 
Superbly statuesque, supremely fair; — 

A god himself would tempt not my desire. 

But in vague ways I most insanely yearn 

To meet some lean, dwarfed, fetid, hairy thing 
With loathsome skin and bulging eyes of rheum, 
Then with wild sighs to make the monster burn 

With Love's delight and bid his hot arms cling 
Around my beauty in the perfumed gloom. 



ESCURIAL. 



29 



ESCURIAL. 

Grand sepulchre of royal hates, dank grave 

Of bitter thoughts morose, of cares and spleens, 
Cyclops of granite, where at midnight rave 

Through gelid crypts the souls of kings and queens, 
What art thou in thy dismal desert, save — 

The silent phantom of Spain's bygone scenes ? 
Does not grim Philip's spirit haunt the naves 

Of thy stern cloisters with his mind's gangrenes ? 
Oh, walls of groans! oh, blood-hewn aisles and domes! 

A sad, drear monotone of echoes roams 
From Guadarramian heights around thy gloom, 

The frozen prayers of Torquemada's slain! 
Cursed be thy silence, monstrous, chilly tomb! 

Crumble and rot, gray fiend of stone and pain! 



3 o DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



TO J. S. THEBAUD, M. D. 

FORTIS ATQUE FIDELIS. 

Towering above our sufferings and our woes, 

Thou standest calm and steadfast, with good cheer 

To those who, swooning in Pain's bitter throes, 
Implore thine aid to shield them from the bier; 

Thine aid that death itself has learnt to fear, 
When driven backward by thy skillful blows. 

Thou guardest Life, and with a proud disdain, 
Hurlst down its foemen in the hot dispute; 

And, with thy watching eyes that never wane, 
Thou, by the horrors of the Death-bed, mute, 

Crushest out sorrow to the utter root, 

Oh proud and mighty conqueror of Pain! 

Thy soft hand pours mandragora of balm, 
Upon the wounds and wretchedness of men; 

Vague hells of torment by thy will turn calm; 
Fevers of fire are softened by thy ken, 

While men with joy gaze on thy face, as when 
Some Arab in scorched desert meets a palm. 



TO J. S. THEBAUD, M. D. 31 

No task too arduous hast been spurned by thee, 
No pain so vivid that thou hast not cured; 

No ill so dire but fades by thy decree, 
No hopes so faltering but hast reassured; 

Great heart of gold, what hast thou not endured 
To spread thy blessings on humanity! 

Thou pluck'st the thorns from fair and fragile flowers, 
And from blue eyes thou turn'st the deathly cloud; 

While through the sad, mysterious midnight hours, 
The hopeful sufferer breathes thy name aloud; 

And awful visions of the grave and shroud, 
Flee from his fancy by thy subtle powers. 

The fiends of pain ne'er fright thee by their curse, 
Thou mock'st their anger in thy giant might; 

They, at thy coming, cower and disperse; 
Where they give darkness thou hast given light; 

Thou, who hast struggled with life's gall and blight, 
Aye! 'neath the pale, grim shadow of the hearse! 

The floods of Lethe thirst for fresher gore, 

The tomb yawns wide and hungers for its prey; 

The yells of Death frustrated on its shore, 
Bid thee abide, but thou wilt not obey: 

Pursuing still thy combat with decay, 

Born to succeed, to strengthen, to restore. 



32 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

See the pale poets, while their muse divine, 
Goads on their brain with roses of soft song, 

Lavish their riches like a fertile mine, 

Upon the world in accents suave and strong. 

Can all their verse a simple life prolong? 
What are their puny deeds compared to thine ? 

See the red flashing of the sword and steel, 
The tramp of glittering armies sent to kill! 

Hear the wild music of the bugles' peal, 

The ranks mowed down, the chief advancing still! 

What bloody roles these butcher-heroes fill, 
Tell me, oh thou who wert ordained to heal! 

See the grand legions of the painters' art, 

Revels of color and of poesy blent! 
How can their beauty numb a mortal smart ? 

What peace or rest have they to sufferers lent ? 
Hast thou not brought to weeping homes content ? 

Hast thou not gladdened many a drooping heart? 

Yes, thou hast given life and all of life, 

Life, radiant, hopeful, passionate and sweet. 

The seeds of ruin, with dank miasm rife, 

Now bloom as flowers, and cling unto thy feet, 

While utter praise from fervent lips will greet 
And hail thee victor in the unequal strife. 



TO J. S. THE BAUD, M. D. 33 

Laurels far brighter than on Csesar's brow, 
Will deck thy name in soft perpetual green; 

The world is barren, like a leafless bough, 

Of hearts like thine, that love and are not seen, 

But prayers of peasant and the smiles of queen, 
Can never make thee nobler than art now. 

And thou shalt find thy righteous recompense, 
In fame and fortune, honor and esteem. 

Thy love of science, like a new-born sense, 
Will flood thy soul, as some impetuous stream 

Bursting its bonds and rushing on supreme, 
Until it riots in some sea immense! 

And thou, as years grow on and pass, shalt find 
A higher end, a far more worthy prize; 

Thy name around a hundred hearts enwined, 
Thy presence hailed by loving, grateful eyes, 

And worlds admiring will thy fame baptize, 

" As one who toiled and labored for mankind." 

D 



34 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



SNOW SONG. 

In dreams I hear a music made of snow, 

Harmonic chilly idyl of cold sound; 

Its echo-twin in polar stars is found, 
It moans to still white moons its utter woe. 

Gaunt ghost-musicians by the frost-gods crowned, 
Drunk upon icicles and snow-drops, glow 

With dismal thought in frigid murmurs drowned. 
I hear ice melodies through dreamland flow. 

Sounds like a dark, cold pond, inviting rime, 
Sounds like the freezing, vague, uncertain chime 
Of distant bells through airs of endless mist, 

Clanging unconsciously to fates above; 
Cold as regrets of some frustrated tryst, 
Cold as the kiss of lips that know no love. 



DEFRA UDED. 35 



DEFRAUDED. 

Serenely sailing on far, treacherous seas, 

I slumbered, dreaming of my mother's smiles, 

While gently urged by the Sumatran breeze, 

We passed green groups of hazy, palm-thronged isles. 

I heard the hissing horror of the storm 
That spent its fury on our helpless barque, 

And, thro' the enormous night, I saw a form 
Of leering lightning shock! then all was dark. 

Dazzled and stunned, to sure destruction hurled, 
I awoke, mid dizzy billows, bruised, alone, 

Lost in a moaning hell, a watery world, 
The tortured buffet of the grim Cyclone. 

For dolorous hours one paltry spar and frail, 
Gave ease to rigid hands and panting breath; 

I felt the weakness of each muscle fail, 
In clamorous darkness I awaited death. 

Eut, as I felt its icy fingers creep 

Upon me, tossed there like some worthless chaff, 



36 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

No pang of terror made me pray or weep, 

But the wild tempest heard my grander laugh. 

For I, about to die, in shroud of foam, 

Whose carrion in blue voids would leave no path, 

Thought of the churchyard worms in my far home, 
And how defrauded they would writhe in wrath! 



SOUVENIR. 37 



SOUVENIR. 

The forest flutters with a breath of May; 
The sun slants softly thro' a mist of greens: 
Upon my arm a gentle beauty leans; 

Through labyrinths of swaying leaves we stray; 

Like the sweet Spring, we too, are fresh and gay, 
And envy not the lot of kings and queens: 
To veil our love no pale care intervenes. 

There is no night to our love's perfect day. 

We walk and dream and dream again, and see 
The brown birds watching as in mute surprise. 
Languid, we feel blue scraps of mellow skies 

Blend with our sense in silent harmony. 

And I, loved, loving, see upturned to me, 
The luring splendor of two lustrous eyes. 

St. Germain, 1874. 



38 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



ANSWERS. 

An angel fair and bright, 
Knocked at my heart one night. 
It asked u Is love still there to bless ? " 
I answered, "Yes." 

An angel sweet as day, 
Paused at my heart to say: 
"Does thy firm faith relieve distress?" 
I answered, "Yes." 

Another angel came, 
Touching my soul to flame, 
"Does pity still thy fancy bless? " 
I answered, "Yes." 

A last fond angel said, 
With white wings o'er me spread: 
" Does hope still in thy bosom glow ? " 
I answered, "No." 



JENA. 39 



JENA. 

OCTOBER 14, 1806. 

The Prussian eagle in its eerie screamed, 

And, from the sandy plains in war's array, 
Dense hordes of stolid, boorish soldiers streamed 

To meet the men of Rivoli that day; 

The martial hosts yearning to smite and slay, 
Stood there defiant with bare swords that gleamed, 
And in calm, haughty insolence, they seemed 

Like hungry condors watching for their prey. 

The Titan fray began, and with disdain 

The laureled grenadiers of France marched on, 

Stern and majestic, through the bullets' rain, 
Until the corpse-clogged field was nobly won. 

While the astounded Vandals fled in vain 
Before the cold sneer of Napoleon. 



4 o DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



THE OLD STREET IN LIMOGES. 

Yes, here it is, the dear old street, 
A maze of picturesque decay, 

As charming now, as quaintly sweet, 
As in the dull years passed away. 

For progress it can break no lance, 
But every stone brings back to me 

The glamour of dead days in France, 
And thoughts of what no more may be. 

Ah! while afar beyond broad seas, 
I struggle thro' the bitter years, 

It slumbered on in solemn ease, 
Unconscious of my smiles or tears. 

But I, when worn by restless care, 
Recalled its beauty like a balm, 

Its memory blessed me everywhere, 
And purified me with its calm. 

Yet tho' my footsteps seem estranged 
Upon the pebbly pavements here, 



THE OLD STREET IN LIMOGES. 41 

Yon pointed .gables have not changed, 
Yon drowsy church is just as dear. 

Its silver chimes have still the sound 
Low, soft and saintly, I once knew, 

Echoes harmonious and profound 

That charmed my earliest rendezvous. 

Ah! there's the shop of Pere Balaisse, 
With battered signs that swing and lean, 

And there the busy market place 
Where first I met my sweet Adine. 

The chimneyed auberge stands there still, 
( Maitre Aureol is dead they say,) 

Ah! how with laughter and a will, 
We used to drink his Beaujolais. 

What! old Mustache! is he alive? 

That grand Imperial hussar, 
Who fought at Arces, one to five, 

And who was but a living scar! 

And there's the tall schoolmaster Jaime, 

Distrait as usual, stiff and gruff, 
Time may go by, he's just the same, 

Smelling of ink and Spanish snuff. 



42 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

And Franzois, too, the old gendarme, 
He has grown gray, but lively yet, 

At Gravelotte he lost an arm, 

They've paid him with a red rosette. 

And as I view the unchanged scene, 
I seem a sad ghost of the past, 

That hovers o'er a spot serene, 

And from my eyes the tears fall fast. 

And I, dear street, beloved so well, 
Come with my sorrows and a sigh, 

Once more within thy light to dwell, 
And in thy gabled shade to die. 



A SOUL MAY LINGER THERE. 



43 



A SOUL MAY LINGER THERE. 

Tread not upon the humble roadside flower; 

Who knows the secrets its soft core contains ? 

Perhaps the soul of some dead friend remains 
Hidden within its petals, and our power 

Can never fathom all its pangs and pains, 
When under heedless feet its senses cower; 
Nor yet conceive its joy, when for an hour, 

Some tender hand to pluck its beauty deigns. 

The voiceless soul that dreams there evermore, 
Saved from the haggard ruin of a tomb, 

Will then in gracefulness our care implore; 
And in our trust a lovelier hue assume, 

While the sweet memory of a friend of yore, 
Breathes forth its love in poems of perfume! 



44 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



FOR THEE. 



TO MARIE B- 



For thee was always my awakening thought, 

For thee the prayer that soothed me ere I slept, 

For thee the smiles that Hope but seldom brought, 
For thee the many bitter tears I wept. 

For thee my life I gladly would cast down, 

And for thy love would pay Death's fatal price, 

Thou my sweet consolation and my crown. 
Thou my despair, my hope, my Paradise. 

For thee, oh my unsullied, stainless goal, 
I live to-day! and for one perfect kiss 

From thy warm lips I would give forth my soul 
And life in worlds hereafter and in this. 

For thee, from sin I would not even shrink, 
For thee, I would not tremble before death, 

For thee I'd perish, if I once could sink 
And die upon the perfume of thy breath. 



FOR THEE. 45 

Thou art my hope, my future, and my past, 
Thou art my sweetest torture and delight, 

Thou art my only love, the first, the last, 
Thou art my radiant dawn, my starry night. 

Spurn not my passion that will e'er abide, 
Boundless and vast and constant as the sea, 

But rather pity in thy conscious pride 

A love more strong than Death itself, for thee. 



46 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



AUSTERLITZ. 

On to the goal the impatient legions come! 

Ulm haloes with success an army's might; 

Far mid the mists and gloom of Austrian night, 
Hear the advancing steeds, the ominous drum! 

Europe cowers shuddering, and strong kings are dumb; 
A Caesar leads a nation to the fight, 
And o'er the allied camps the flaming light 

Of his great star strikes the rude masses numb! 

Five hundred thundering cannon boom and glow, 
A sun of victory on the keen steel slants, 

There on the gore-strewn plains of pine and snow 
Russ clutches Gaul in labyrinths of lance, 

While o'er the hurrying hell of war and woe 

Floats the Imperial, bloodstained flag of France. 



TETE-A-TETE, 47 



TETE-A-TETE. 

I dreamed a beauteous angel came to me, 
And cried aloud, " Oh sleeping man, arise, 

For thou thrice-blest, art now about to see 

The Eternal God with thine unhallowed eyes! " 

A shadow passed before me, and He came, 
Silent and stern within the awful night, 

And lo! beneath a coronet of flame, 

Mine eyes beheld a hideous thing of fright! 



4 8 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



THE AWAKENING. 

Her arms lie bare about his neck, and still 
In dream, her lips half open with a sigh 
As though to woo her dream some sweet reply. 

All slowly her enthralled senses fill, 

As valley waters from a mountain rill 

Swollen by storm. Her bosom'd treasures lie 
Encircled by his arms, and still sweeps by 

The swelling tide into the Deep's deep will. 

And he, too, dreams — in Love's night-hidden day — 
Until the shallows, murmuring, rise and leap, 

And lap the spirit within that sweet clay 

Against his breast. Then lips that trysting keep, 

Unconsciously, nearer and closer lay 

Till sudden kisses burst the bonds of sleep. 



MY FAITH. 49 



MY FAITH. 

i. 
When I press unto mine arms with thirst of capture, 

The fond form my yearning senses idolize; 
The pale thought of separation from such rapture, 

Comes to chill me with its terrible surprise. 

II. 

As I kiss the loving head so fair, so fragile, 
With its golden wealth of luminous soft hair, 

I feel sensuously the young life free and agile, 

That craves naught save utter love to win and share. 

in. 
But those glorious eyes imperial of flashes, 

That proud love in which I revel with my trust, 
Must return some day to darkness and to ashes, 

And its loveliness must crumble into dust. 

IV. 

And that heart that glows for me with such pure burning, 
That great heart of which my amour is so vain, 

Must depart to glooms from whence is no returning, 
And must leave me to my loneliness and pain. 

E 



50 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

V. 
This I know and feel; and tremble as I cherish 

The frail love-cloyed wonder dreaming in my arms, 
And the thought alone that such a prize might perish 

Eleats my senses with the fever of alarms. 

VI. 

For if she should die and friends knew what befell me, 
They would haunt my woe and poignant grief sincere, 

And with solemn voice beside the corpse would tell me, 
Of eternity and some far better sphere. 

VII. 

They would tell me that most radiant and immortal, 
She would wait for me despite the fears of tomb; 

And that on the grim gray threshold of Death's portal, 
We could meet again our transport to resume. 

VIII. 

Taking kisses of white snows from mountains chilly, 
Stealing murmurs from the music of the sea, 

Taking perfume from the rose or from the lily, 
Is like taking her fond memory from me. 

IX. 

She is all and all of me, love hath no limit, 
And I scorn to bound a passion equal mine, 

It was born of her, and she alone can dim it, 
Until then its flame shall calmly, nobly shine. 



MY FAITH. 

X. 
And I need no ministering angel hovering round me, 

To protect me and to turn me from despair; 
For my love has found her out and she has found me, 

And when dead we cannot sympathize elsewhere. 

XI. 

What care I of after life when I have lost her, 
What is there that can her loveliness replace, 

What kind germ of hope can my soul ever foster, 
When mine eyes see not the splendor of her face ? 

XII. 

I shall find her, yes, I doubt it not, but splendent, 
And in haloes of great glory and great light; 

But the old, old love, so noble and transcendent, 
Will not rise again to penetrate my night. 

XIII. 

No, if she should die, I need no prayer that blesses, 
And no soothing hymn could cure a wound like this, 

Being reft of all the balm of her caresses, 

And the soft, sad, slumbering silence of her kiss. 

xiv. 
I would sooner fight with Death my unfair duel, 

And live on despite this fatal horoscope; 
For the pain I would endure would be less cruel, 

Than the horrid, bitter promise of such hope. 



5i 



52 



DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



XV. 
For I need her now, when Love all love assuages, 

When our youth and ardor mutually blend; 
And I mock the dim, gray Future of dead ages, 

And I need no life hereafter to befriend. 

XVI. 

Yes, I need her now, with all her grace and splendor, 
With her ebon eyes that beam with love and prayer; 

I am thirsting for the contact of her, tender, 
And the strange, delirious perfume of her hair. 

XVII. 

And should Death essay her gentle breath to sunder, 
I would hope not, pray not, knowing all were vain, 

That we never more should meet above or under, 
That our spirits ne'er would fuse and blend again. 

XVIII. 

I would find new strength and soul should Death bereave me, 
No pale tear of pain would glisten in my eye; 

I would love enough to let her spirit leave me, 
And would live without a hope, without a sigh. 



PROFILE. 



53 



PROFILE. 

Half of a face love I, superbly Greek! 

The other half ignore, and would not know- 
Its charms or its deceits; why should I seek 

The fair uncertainties that sight might show, 

When to mine eyes a perfect profile, sleek 
And softly languorous of artistic flow, 

Smileth in splendid curves from front to cheek, 
Rubied between by lips of luscious glow ? 

No! in rapt contemplation I prefer 

To gaze upon its Nauplian mould, and stir 

My chaos of mad musings to revere 
The peerless purity of such a face; 

For God had sculptured from an angel's tear 
This pale, proud profile of sublimest grace! 



54 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



DOLCE FAR NIENTE. 

characters. 

Dona Serafina. Don Alonzo. 

scene: seville. 

Room in Serafina' s villa: hour of siesta: closed blinds, soft 
light. Serafina is seen reclining on a sofa sipping a sherbet. 
Don Alonzo on a canape opposite. Room ficr?iished in modern 
Spanish style. Flowers, bird-cages, a piano, guitars. 



'Tis very hot. 



Alonzo. 

Serafina. 

Yes, very. 



Alonzo. 

And the sun 
Its fiery course of heat has not yet run; 
All Seville town the calm siesta keeps. 
Save me. 

Serafina. 

And pray why not ? 



DOLCE FAR NIENTE. 55 

Alohzo. 

My soul ne'er sleeps 
Since first my dazzled eyes beheld thy charms, 
Thy pearly teeth, the Paros of thine arm?, 
Thy fragrant hair. . . . 

Serajina. 
Hush, hush, it is too warm 
To lavish praises on my face and form; 
Had you not better smoke a cigarette 
And sip this sherbet, which is frozen yet ? 
Flavored with citron, made of Sierra ice: 

{offers sherbet). 
Alonzo. 

No, no, its sweet cannot my tongue entice; 

When I have seen how daintily you sip 

Its savory edge, and how your scarlet lip, 

Touched by its white and perfumed freshness, glows 

Like to a rosebud peeping from the snows. 

Serajina. 
Charming indeed; considering the heat, 
Your graceful Muse with Vega's could compete. 
But pray lie still, and calm such ardent fire. 
Love is not pretty when we both perspire, 
So wait, I beg, until the twilight breeze 
Flutters its balm among yon orange trees; 
Then when the anger of the sun is o'er, 
Perchance we'll talk of love and something more. 



56 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Alonzo. 
Alas, dear Serafina of my soul! 
I reach to-day a long-expected goal; 
Thro' three sad years for this one hour I've prayed: 
I've spent a fortune in the serenade 
I give to you each night! You know my pain, 
My patience, woe and jealousy! in vain 
For three long years have we two striven to meet 
And make in blissful fact our dreams complete. 
Your cruel padre thrusts me from your door, 
Your heartless madre laughs when I implore, 
And, your old duena, to my utter woe, 
Is still to-day my most relentless foe. 
And yet I could not wait three longer years; 
You could not linger on in pain and tears, 
So, covered with the shield of your consent, 
I've dared to realize my fond intent; 
Your duena, gagged, lies cursing us down stairs, 
Your madre in the church is at her prayers; 
A forged letter, hem! but as you bid, 
Now sends your noble padre to Madrid, 
And here at last we meet for the first time 
To reap a love which Hope has made sublime. 

Serafina. 
Yes, dear Alonzo, we have sorely striven 
To gain this hour of utter joy and heaven; 
I of thy proud audacity am fond, 



DOLCE FAR NIENTE. 57 

And all my soul to thine yearns to respond. 
I have so languished for this hoped-for hour, 
That to believe it mine, I lose all power; 
But when Love's prospects such annoyance meet 
The toil and labor make the hour more sweet — 
Nay don't approach me. . . . 

(Alonzo makes faint movement to rise!) 
It is still too warm 
Oh, Dios! how these vile mosquitoes swarm. 
Calm your desires, Alonzo, let us chat, 
Till we are cool again, and, after that, 
Our lips shall meet in soft, delirious thrill, 
But just pro tern., pray linger mute and still. 
I fear your transports will disturb my lace 
And ardent kisses always mark my face. 

Alonzo. 
Yes, mi querida, were it not so hot, 
I would not even envy kings their lot; 
My feverish passion I will still subdue 
And take things coolly, ... as I see you do. 
And by the way, before I do forget 
Allow my offering you a cigarette. 

Serafina. 
Alonzo sweetest, hand me my guitar. 

( Does so without arising!) 
How light and charming all your movements are. 
I still remember that eventful night. 



5 8 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

When twenty bravi put you unto flight. 
Upon my balcony I saw it all, 
And prayed unto the Saints you would not fall. 
'Twas then I saw your lithe and agile grace, 
And all the terror pictured on your face 
Made you so pale and beautiful I vow, 

I swore to love you. ... as I love you now. (Sings.) 

II Un patan y una mulata." ( Lays aside guitar?) 
I cannot sing to-day with any zest, 

This odious heat has all my sense oppressed. 
Take the guitar, Alonzo, improvise 
Some dreamy ditty to my dreamy eyes. 

Alonzo {wiping his brow) — 
Really, my love, the weather warmer grows. 
'Tis very hot, but I will not oppose 
Your gracious wish: what had I better sing? 

Serajina {languidly). 
'Tis not much matter, darling, — anything. 
Alonzo {sings). 
"Whene'er I gaze into thy wondrous eyes 
I see 
What Paradise 

Will be." ( Faints with heat.) 

Serajina. 

Charming indeed, but speak, Alonzo dear, 

A rumor on the p/aza met my ear, 

A friend has told me that you only thought 



DOLCE FAR NIENTE. 59 

Of Inez: that you gave her ear-rings, wrought 
In gold and jasper; that she has a fan 
Of peacock's plumes you bought at Alar&n; 
Also that you her slightest wish obeyed, 
And that last Sunday, in a serenade 
Given to her, your tenor notes were heard! 
How does it happen she is thus preferred ? 
To own my love I often have been blamed. 
A gypsy girl! you ought to be ashamed! 

Alonzo. 
Some envious churl has vilified my loves; 
I ne'er gave Inez but a pair of gloves 
To hide her hands (so very large you know), 
And that is all; at times I used to go 
To see her suffering mother at her house. 
But, Serafina, do not knit your brows, 
I had no love for Inez, for her eyes 
Are blue and watery, and I do not prize 
Her hair, which is not silken, soft and black 
Like yours, and does not tumble down her back. 
Besides, you must have learned from divers hints 
How red her nose is and how much she squints. 
I should be jealous, Serafina dear, 
For why I pray is Juan so often here ? 
He sends you presents almost every day; 
Why does he court you in this insolent way ? 



60 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Serafina. 
Juan, my dear, is but a family friend, 
And to my love would never dare pretend. 
I do not see what you are jealous at, 
Dios! a man who wears a green cravat! 
Your mad love blinds you .... 

Alonzo. 

Well I do regret 
My vile suspicions. 

Serafina. 

You are my own pet, 
The wild flower of my soul, my only pride. 

Alonzo. 
Darling! I long to perish by thy side. 

Serafina. 



My idol! 



My little Quixote! 



Alonzo. 

Marvel! 
Serafina. 

My sweet king! 

Alonzo. 

Love's light! 

Serafina. 



Alonzo. 

Angel! 

Serafina. 

My own knight! 
Come to my arms thou best beloved of all, 



DOLCE FAR NIENTE. 61 

Arouse! querido at my passions' call, 

Thou who in dreams I have so oft caressed, 

Now pour thy love upon my burning breast! 

Alonzo {not stirring). 
Oh yes, to taste thy kisses sweetest balm! 
Soft as the sight of some long searched for palm 
In sultry deserts ravaged by simoum. 
Ah yes! to breathe the lily-like perfume 
Of thy irradiant tresses. Come, yes, come! 
Haste to my arms, for I am passion numb! 

Serafina {motionless). 
Kneel at my feet and tell me I am fair, 
Unbraid the scented poem of my hair, 
Come, sweet Alonzo, come — 

Alonzo. 

I cannot stir, 
Rest on my lips thy lips' hot, sensuous fur; 
Let no joy tarry we have found at last 
In this sweet present; bury up the past. 
Come, Serafina, come. 

Serafina, 

It is too hot 
For me to move; come you to me; ah! what? 
You do not, cat like, hurry from your seat 
To pay your trembling homage at my feet ? 



62 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Alonzo. 
Light of my soul, to me should you approach; 
How can my torpid brain fierce love words broach ? 
Come unto me and prove to me my bliss. 

Sera fin a. 
I never thought your love would come to this! 
I am so easy on this canape, 

Alonzo. 
And I so comfortable here, I say; 
You will not come ? 

Serafina. 

No, you should come to me. 
Juan ere this would have been far more free. 
Alonzo. 

And blue-eyed Inez, too, for were she here, 
Her love at least would show itself sincere. 
Come. 

Serafina. 

Come! 

Alonzo. 

Come yourself. 

Serafina. 

I will not. 

Alonzo. 

Indeed ? 
Well, stay, and take the siesta that you need. 



DOLCE FAR NIENTE. 63 

Serafina. 
'Tis good advice, Alonzo, that you give; 
I really need a slumber, as I live, 
And as your boiling passions grow so tame, 
I think that you had better do the same. 

Alonzo. 
And then you love me not ? 

Serafina. 

I love you more, 
But, really, this is no time to adore. 
I'll doze an hour. 

Alonzo. 

And willingly will I; 
We'll talk of love together by and by. 
May your repose be sweet, my dearest love. 

Serafina. 
My hope! 

Alonzo. 
My faith! 

Serafina. 

My bird! 

Alonzo. 

My heart! 

Serafina. 

My dove! 



64 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Alonzo. 
How sweet it is to slumber, cool and free, 
I love you — 

Serafina. 

I adore you. 

Both. 

Dream of me! 

Both sleep. 



TO YULMA. 65 



TO YULMA. 

A MOORISH LOVER SPEAKS. 

Like soft twin moons thy rounded bosoms gleam 
Veiled in the shade of Yani's minaret, 
And like an undulate tide of perfumed jet 

Thy sequin-studded tresses downward stream. 

Thine eyes recall the first triumphant beam 

That darts thro' daring clouds, that Westward met 
Ere the all-holy sun in state had set, 

Leaving warm valleys in a hazy dream. 

Here in the grim shades of the Alcazar, 
Listen, oh love, unto my soft kinoor, 

That pulses like my heart for thee, afar! 
Hark to sweet Saudis' words that all allure, 
And see, like hope, lighting yon barren moor, 

The flawless splendor of our guardian star! 



66 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



CERTAINTY. 

Far through the endless corridors of dream 

I wander, gloom-wrapped, seeking truth and light, 

Faith that I crave, Love that can more than seem, 
Food for my Soul, release from utter Night. 

For I am tainted with a sad distrust, 

A viperous itching not to see or hear! 
The arid desert of my body's dust 

Has ever spurned the solace of a tear. 

I long to lose my wish to not believe, 

And riot in fresh floods of feeling! lost, 
Alas my thoughts like heavy cerements cleave 

Unto my corpse-mind, frigid as of frost. 

The gracious phantom of a holy love 

Leads me thro' Life's dead dream, and Dream's bright life, 
The radiance pure, immaculate thereof 

Is with grand cheer and noble promise rife. 

That love sustains, it breathes, it beams, it is, 

And guides me tottering thro' the grays of gloom; 

I follow humble, passive, knowing this, 
That I shall find it Heaven — or a tomb. 



67 



Celle que j'ai le plus aimee 
Avait la taille d'une almee, 

De gros yeux bleus au long cil noir. 
Un teint de rose et de neige, 
Comme l'Albane et le Correge 

Seuls dans le reve ont pu voir. 

Ses cheveux plus bruns que ebene 
Trainaient comme un manteau de reine 

Sur un corps aux divins contours. 
Sa bouche etait petite et rose, 
On eut dit deux feuilles de rose — 

Ou nichait un essaim d'amours. 

Ses deux mains tenaient dans la mienne 
Dans le baiser sa fraiche haleine 

Avait des effluves de feu. 
Sa voix etait un doux-poeme, 
Et quand elle me disait " je t'aime " 

Je me sentais devenir Dieu — ! 



68 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



A FRAGMENT. 

The creeping stars shone in the blue still night 
With lustrous opulence of beam, while clouds, 
Fitful and fleecy fled like full-sailed ships 
Thro' seas of air; the languid moon rose up 
In silver shoals of light; and I reclined 
Pensive and weighted down by earthly woes, 
Lost in the shadows of a dreamy oak, 
Striving to weave fair tapestries of hope 
In threads of silken thought within my mind, 
Battling 'gainst spleens and seeking to evade 
The sombre twilights of my sorrowing brain. 

I heard sweet songs, sung by a cloud of birds, 
To dying sunset in the drowsy east; 
And I, like them, felt anxious in my gloom, 
To win by music the pale love of stars. 

Like tears upon the face of night new stars 
Came out and twinkled; while I saw the moon 
Stranded upon a copse of ghastly pines. 



A FRAGMENT. 69 

I sought to dissipate my pains in song, 

And hushed with melody the birds whose notes 

Were not as soft and liquid as mine own. 

A song of love I sang, my soul afire 

Was dying with fierce famine of great love. 

The naked moon, pale, silver-veined, stood still, 

And listened with its white bland face of calm. 

Sudden when singing forth my soul in strains 

Of mystic harmonies, and loveful tones, 

A figure of a laughing girl emerged 

From oaken solitudes and came to me. 

As when a cloud of light propelled by suns 

Bursts on the sky all blushing with surprise, 

She came to me, nude, trailing-haired and fair, 

A flush of Indian sun upon her face, 

With tremulous poesy in her downcast eyes, 

With queenly treadings of a queenly foot 

And coyly toying with the rich green fern, 

She drew sweet blossoms from her twisted hair. 

The unprolific seeds of hate, and all 
My stubborn scorn for man that thrived and grew, 
And pasture found within my callous heart, 
Vanished like mist before a stroke of sun. 
Great wild desire sprang up in flames of thought, 
Beading with damp my love untutored brow. 



70 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

I cleft my mind from poetry's vague shores 

Where it was harboring, and thought no more 

Of barren beaches in untraveled worlds, 

The bleak stern bergs of boreal solitude, 

And all the mysteries of melodious dreams 

That haunted me with sorrow till she came, 

But rose and tottered toward her, while great hope, 

Like to a meteor falling thro' the gloom 

Flasht o'er my soul with light that dazzled me. 

The night-seas moan their cold loves to the stars, 

Bold billows, amorous, dash and splash upon 

The beach they love with kisses hot of foam, 

And e'er retire uncomforted and sad, 

To beg again, to be again refused — 

Why should I not, with poetry and youth, 

Approach this star of flesh, this living dream, 

Try tc deceive the unlashed eye of fate. 

And cheat with arrogance its now sleepy power 

And kiss those rose-cheeks pearled of fleur m de lys? 

Why should my love shrink back and be afraid, 
When all that love is tangled in her smile, 
And fired by arrowy glances from her eyes 
That court my kissings ? So mused I, and rash, 
Called her by signs of longing languorous love. 
For hours the music of my low appeals 



A FRAGMENT. 

Rose to the moon-eyed creature of my wish, 

My white-fleshed Leman, with great wondering eyes, 

Clad in the golden armor of her hair, 

And that alone — nude, beautiful and white. 

Tempests of sobs and damp, dark storms of tears 
I lavished in my supplicating trance. 
Soul is a fire; love is its strongest flame, 
Both did I offer, aye but once to know 
The caudent pressure of her young, strong arms, 
And lip her kisses backward to her mouth. 
I sung and sung the same old song of love, 
The same song sung in Aidens' purple nights, 
The song beloved of moons before our time. 
Old songs that trembled like enamored stars, 
I sang with lips more passionful than eyes, 
With hot and crimson stammerings of love. 

The reeling gold of her loose tresses flung 

Over the star-light of her gazing eyes 

Was dashed aside; and to my lips she prest 

The living coral of her lips all hot 

With pains and pleasures of my softest song. 

1 looked up wildly in the flashing night 

Of her great eyes, and drank the flavorous flood, 

The subtle nightshade of her lingering kiss, 



7i 



72 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

While o'er us in the mellow blue, the moon, 
Celestial lighthouse of storm-driven clouds, 
Smiled all its gold upon our golden lives. 

Long sunful days, loud with a thousand songs, 
Long moonful nights, calm with a thousand flowers, 
Visions and vistas of seraphic halls 
Passed by in thought, as on her lips I reeled, 
Throwing my life away like lees of wine! 
January 12, 1874. 



CONFESSION. 73 



CONFESSION. 

Love came to Earth with faith and trust, 
And found all nations steeped in lust. 

Sweet Pity came in ways sublime, 
Her eyes on every side saw crime. 

Health, peerless, sprang from Heaven's breath. 
And came to Earth to find — but Death. 

While Peace to see our Love and Law 
Arrived to witness cruel War. 

Then back to Heaven the angels flew, 
Their golden pinions draped in dew. 

****** 
Asking whose fault is this, oh God divine, 
And God serenely answered — "It is mine." 



74 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



SONNET IMPROVISE. 

Tu rirais gentiment, coquette jouvencelle, 
Si je te murmurais doucement et tout bas, 

Que mon coeur t' appartient, que je te trouve belle, 
Et qu'un baiser mignon vaudrait un noir trepas. 

Ah, oui, tu sourirais, et la brune 6tincelle, 
Jaillirait de tes yeux, si je faisais un pas, 

Pourquoi me permets tu d'esperer, ma cruelle, 
Quand je t'adore tant, si tu ne m'aimes pas ? 

Ton coeur est done ferme a triple cadenas ? 

Mais, est-ce bien un coeur? Non, une citadelle, 
Qu' il faut prendre d'assaut a grand renfort de bras. 

J 'en ferai le doux siege, alert, arme, fidele, 
Pour conquerir ton coeur, mais si je tombe, h£las, 

Daigneras tu panser ma blessure mortelle ? 



LINDA AND PASQUIN. 



75 



LINDA AND PASQUIN.* 

A SPANISH LEGEND. 

Hail to thee! noble sunny land of Spain! 
Land of delirious loves: land where the brain 
Of giddy youth with feverish sap o'erflows: 
Land where the inner soul with passion glows, 
Fed by the dainty sweetness of the grape, 
That luscious nectar source, from whence escape 
The fiery fumes of fiercest lust, and sin, 
Which mortals gloat, and pride to revel in. 
Fair land of love! fair land of joy and song! 
Where maiden's ardent kiss is sweet and long; 
Land where the beauteous coal-eyed peris dwell, 
Whose vaulted, adamantine bosoms swell 
With overwhelming riotous unrest, 
A last fond relic of the Moorish zest, 
Which courses madly thro' their purple veins, 
And never ebbs by cloy, and never wanes. 
Land where the savory pungent wine of gold 
Sparkles in limpid witchery untold, 



* The first poem written by the author, then sixteen years of age. 



76 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Kindling chaotic amorous desire, 
Stirred by its glowing fumes of liquid fire. 
Which gayly chant a gurgling Bacchic hymn, 
When trickling from the goblet's massive brim. 
Land where soft dainty languors scent the breeze, 
Wafted from maiden's breath to fan the trees; 
Where ev'ry bird that owns a pearly note, 
Trills it with rapture from its feathered throat, 
With warbling grace, to thank its loving God, 
For having placed it on thy genial sod. 
Land of the valiant Cid! land of the sword! 
Land of the juicy fig! 'tis thee I laud! 
Land where the sun glints on the chilly steel! 
Thrice noble art thou, proud, antique Castille. 
Oh happy land where joyous echoes ring, 
Land of the brave and fair! of thee I sing. 

My lay is but a legend drear, and sad, 

A tale of fancy weird — if not of mad — 

A long-lost echo of a by-gone time. 

A tale of horrid horror — yet no crime 

Is added to the world's o'erflowing list. 

This legend came and went, as, when the mist 

Lingers and floats over the mountain's brow, 

Fading beneath the sun, no one knows how; 

And yet this Spanish story quaint and vague, 

Strikes to the vital chord, like pest and plague, 



LINDA AND PASQUIN. 77 

The sickened heart with uncouth tremor fills, 
And ev'ry listening fibre awes, and thrills, 
For nothing stranger than this wild conceit 
Has chanced the world's absorbing eye to meet. 

Looped on the Guadalquivir's golden strand, 
By fluctuant perfumed breezes softly fanned, 
Rests fair Seville; the swarthy Spaniard's pride, 
Where silvery rippling streamlets err and glide, 
Molten from out the ravine's wastes of snow, 
Dashing imperious with a gurgling low, 
In argent sheen, thro' vine clad dell and lea, 
To mingle with the placid cobalt sea. 

Piercing the giant Sierra's gloom and shade, 
A dazzling sun shone o'er the leafy glade, 
Blending its floods of light and aureate rays 
With coming night's soft lilac-tinted haze. 
Here, on the outskirts of the city stood 
A cottage, built of rough Cordova wood, 
Half hidden in a maze of fragrant flowers, 
Which, deftly creeping up from sunny bowers, 
Entwine, and nestle round the window's sill, 
And all the air with balmy odor fill. 
A patio's spacious court, where fountains play 
Jutting forth foamy floods of crystal spray, 



78 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Is decked with porcelain tilings, old and quaint, 

Of mottled hue, and irridescent paint, 

A lasting vestige of the dusky Moors. 

The azulejo's beauty still allures, 

A stranger's eye by rich and varied tint, 

When shining softly in the sun's keen glint. 

A maiden from the flower-wreathed window gazed. 

Her two large flashing orbs with passion blazed. 

Aye, passion reveling in every gleam — 

Passion of touchy flesh — passion of dream — 

Passion which could have turned Hell's bile so sweet, 

That any, willing, would its torments meet, 

If only once before the suffering hour, 

Rapt, they could feel her eyes' Circean power! 

Fairest and noblest of Seville was she — 

Fair! — for her lucent locks of ebony, 

Each glorious, undulating silken tress, 

She wreathed and braided for her love's caress. 

Far better than a Queen was Linda crowned, 

For her black hair trailed nearly to the ground, 

And almost touched her dainty foot — so small 

That a man's closed palm could have held it all. 

Still at her open window Linda's eye, 

Scanned ev'ry cavalier that loitered by; 



LINDA AND PASQUIN. 79 

And anxious waited for the dusky night 
To speed the blessed hour of her delight, 
For well she knew that in her willing arms, 
Her lover soon would taste her regal charms. 

At last night's ashy rays on Seville fell, 
The old Cathedral's rusty iron bell 
Tolled on the air with heavy mournful drone 
Its mellow harmonies of monotone — 
Ringing that vesper hour had come again, 
To rouse the pious chord of holy Spain. 
And as the long-veiled sinners sped to pray, 
Seville could count another by-gone day, 
While from the Heaven's canopy afar, 
The stars shone on the gilded Alcazar. 

Soft was the soothing air, serene the night; 

The pale moon's opal fulgor, chaste and bright, 

Tinted the lilac-colored roofs with glare, 

And shed its phantom suaveness on the Square; 

And as it shone with magic virgin power, 

Deep clanged the stirring midnight holy hour, 

And as the last dull echo faintly boomed 

Out on the noiseless air — there sudden loomed 

A young and gallant looking Cavalier — 

Whose pronged steel-tipped spurs, rang bell-like clear 



8o DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Whene'er they struck the pavement's rugged stone, 
Blending metallic with his baritone, 
As on he paced, clad in a mantle gray, 
Humming the chorus of some ballad gay. 
Firm on a polished rapier's hilt — his hand 
Gracefully rested, while the shade he scanned; 
His suelte, and manly form was tightly wrapped 
Close in a flowing mantle's fold — while capped 
With a sombrero, and its trailing plume, 
The youthful figure eager pierced the gloom, 
As from his carmine lips he idly blew 
Thick smoky clouds of opalescent hue. 

Scarce had the dying bell of midnight tolled, 
When Don Pasquino round his body rolled 
His trailing cloak, and thro' the stilly street 
Was beard the sounds of flying footsteps fleet. 
Thro' curved winding lane, and alley dark, 
Lightless and drear, save when the spark 
Of silvery starlets twinkled overhead, 
The ardent lover to his trysting sped. 
Past ghastly kirk, and convent's chilly shade, 
Onward he strode, clasping his trusty blade; 
While thro* the city's lonely squares he passed, 
And from the opaque gloom emerged at last — 



LINDA AND PASQUIN 81 

Standing before the blooming cottage door, 
Where Love had often guided him before. 

Swift o'er the stony wall he nimbly sprung; 
Reached the steep trellised balustrade, where hung 
A dangling ladder, coiled in staunchest rope, 
The wrinkled duena's foe; the lover's lasting hope. 
The latticed window sudden opened wide — 
A gleam of joy untold! a glance of pride 
Welcomed Pasquino, banished his alarms; 
A moment later, two fond, rounded arms 
Clasped his hot frame upon a panting breast, 
Where his blonde curls could find the sweetest rest, 
That love sick mortal e'er could wish to gain, 
For years of torment, sacrifice and pain. 

A siren voice with mellow accent sweet, 

Whispered "my love," as at the tiny feet 

Of his fair mistress, young Pasquino knelt, 

While silence spake the burning thoughts he felt. 

Long was the lovers' rapturous embrace, 

Joy boundless beamed in each fond upturned face, 

For both were rich with grace, and charm of youth, 

And 'dowed with God-like gifts; 'twas sure forsooth, 

That pungent stung each fiery maniac kiss, 

That fierce and fiercer grew their torrid bliss; 

G 



82 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

For two fond hearts when cloyed by am'rous rage 
On Earth live moments — but in Heaven an age! 

When from the erotic trance the pair awoke, 

On bended knee the noble Pasquin spoke: 

" Linda quierda, hear my fervent prayer, 

Undo thy glorious wealth of ebon hair; 

Let it descend in wavy floods of sheen 

O'er the rich, glossy, crimson nectarine 

Of thy soft cheek, bedimmed by tears of lust, 

Down on that throbbing breast which I can trust 

To choke and kill me in its folds of jet. 

Strangle my sobs within its playful net. 

Consent I pray thee Linda, quick unloose, 

Then, let me madly drink thy kisses' juice, 

Sweeter by far than nectar of the vine, 

Dearer to me than gems from Oural mine, 

And let me inhale thy hot and perfumed breath — 

Clasped in thy arms, let Heaven come in Death!" 

But now the night was waning into day, 

Pasquino donned once more his mantle gray; 

Stooped low to kiss again his mistress fair, 

And scent the odor of her wavy hair. 

"Then sure to-morrow thou wilt come;" she cried: 

As to his waist, his glittering sheath he tied. 



LINDA AND PASQUIN. 83 

"I know not what strange fancies fill my heart, 

But sigh to see thee on this morn depart; 

Strange burning fever simmers thro' my brain, 

I feel mysterious throbs in every vein; 

My frame is hot with love, while many a whim, 

And fancies vague, my eyes with languor dim — 

I'm sore unwell — fear not it is with cloy — 

My love for thee is free from all alloy, 

My breath is quick and hot, and my dull eyes, 

When glancing not upon the form I prize 

So madly, close in riotous repose; 

Dreaming my bosom by thy kisses glows." 

Pasquino smiled: " The morning rays come fast, 

Another kiss my darling, 'tis the last — 

But let it be so long, so deep, so true, 

That its sweet roscid thrill, and perfumed dew, 

Will bless my lips, and animate my frame, 

Till I another sweeter one can claim." 

The mad kiss echoed: and the lover lept 

From the high balustrade, and swiftly crept 

Over the garden wall, while brisk and clear, 

His distant footsteps fell on Linda's ear. 

Across the plaza smoking a cigar, 
Pasquino wandered towards the Alcazar, 
Gazing with rapture on its Moslem grace, 
Tho' haunted still by Linda's fairy face. 



84 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

And as he soared in fancies born of air, 

A well-known voice resounded o'er the square, 

" Oh la! amigo, what art doing here ? 

Santa Maria! can it be a tear 

I see in thy blue eye my loyal friend ? 

Some tale of love no doubt; come tell the end 

To me, thy old and faithful Alzamor; 

I can console thee, as I have before. 

Let us away, arouse thee from this trance, 

At Pipo's, there's a supper, and a dance — 

So listen friend Pasquino, cease to pine, 

Come let us quaff the rich old Spanish wine, 

That cheers the soul, and forces out the wit, 

And surely will dispel this gloomy fit. 

Besides, to-night, so runs Seville's report — 

Four alm£es from the sultan's harem brought, 

Will dance a quaint and novel saraband: 

Such as has never in this ill-starred land, 

Been rivaled by our native Spanish girls, 

In spite of winning grace, and lascive twirls. 

Come, come, shake off this mystery ill-timed, 

The convent bells for matin prayers have chimed; 

Thy black-eyed Dulcinea dreams of thee — 

P'rhaps in another's arms — but i ay de mil* 

Scowl not so fiercely, knowest well I jest — 

Pray cease that vacant stare, and heed my 'quest." 



LINDA AND PASQUIN. 85 

" Well, if thy heart so sayeth, let us go — 

Altho' I care not this new Turkish show 

To see, or witness any Orient bawd, 

We have enough in Spain; not from abroad 

Should these brown odalisks with paint and dye, 

Come to Castille with Seville girls to vie." 

To Pipo's haunt, the two young nobles strolled, 

To taste a quean's caress — to lose their gold, 

To join a cut-throat gang well versed in sin, 

To listen to the stunning madd'ning din 

Of drunken brutes, and roytish maids, half clad, 

Who with long sallow faces, pale and sad, 

Crowd eager round with giggling voice uncouth, 

To satisfy the lusts of evil youth; 

There lecherous prurient thieves, and hardened rakes 

Clamor like vultures for some paltry stakes; 

There the cold pointed dirk hath often shone; 

There the harlots' noisy laugh chimes with the groan 

Of some poor sinning ruffian's dying breath, 

As round his senseless form they hoot his death — 

Until hurled out into the alley's gloom, 

The bleeding corpse can find a dreary tomb! 

By foul and venomed wine, Pasquino drugged — 
Lost fast his onzas, while a hoiden hugged 



86 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Him in her arms, and with a drunken stare, 
Watched the young noble 'neath the candle's glare, 
And gently with his auburn ringlets toyed 
Till with her glandered kisses tired and cloyed, 
Her snaky grasp he from his neck unwound, 
And balm in sleep, for all his sorrows found. 
Two weary days in orgies, lewdish feasts, 
The friends in Pipo's den, like savage beasts, 
Sipped the fire Xeres, till the writhing brain, 
Revolted bitter from the stringent drain. 
Their gayest sonnets seemed both flat and sad, 
And fleeced of ev'ry duro that they had, 
The couple left the hole with nerveless feet 
And tottered slowly to the quiet street. 
The evening breeze fanning his aching head 
Pasquino bade his friend farewell — and sped 
Towards Linda's home, while as he paced along 
He hummed the fragments of a ribald song. 
Though mazed with liquor, he could still discern 
The cotward road, and every winding turn; 
But still his speech was quavering and thick, 
His heart was in a glow — his brain was sick. 
Scaling the patio wall, and balustrade, 
Temulent Pasquin, fearless, undismayed — 
Entered with trembling step the well-known room, 
Where naught illumed the deep and heavy gloom, 



LINDA AND PASQU1N. 87 

Save the gair lustre of a flickering lamp 
Which vacillated 'neath his heavy tramp. 

"Two days! two lonely nights! " he murmured low, 

" Have I been absent! — what a cruel blow! 

I think I hear my Linda's breath: she sleeps — 

And in her dreams for lost Pasquino weeps; 

" That rotten wine," he moaned, "my sense has dazed;" 

And, stumbling towards the bed, the curtain raised. 

Yes; there she lies, in all her beauty grand, 

Her crucifix clasped in her lily hand! 

Her lustrous eyes slumbering in sweet repose, 

Her tresses falling in voluptuous flows! 

Desire intense these regal charms inspired; 

By this fair sight Pasquino's lust was fired; 

He saw naught save the moment's wild delight, 

And moved by ardor fierce, blew out the light, 

While o'er fair Linda's sleeping form he bent — 

And Xeres' fumes flame to his passion lent — 

For drunk alike with wine, and drunk with bliss, 

Like molten lava fell each fiery kiss, 

While all the martyr saints of holy Spain, 

To check his frenzy would have cursed in vain. 

His wavy mind heard Linda's amorous scream, 

His eye distinctly saw her eyes' wild gleam 

Of ardent might, and ecstacy supreme. 

He saw and felt it all, that wild, wild dream, 



88 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Till pleasure was a pain; — and, worn of zest 
He sank inert upon her granite breast. 
And there by cruel memories rent and torn, 
He lay unconscious till the early morn. 

The sun's first beams shining on fair Seville 

Awoke Pasquino, and tho' drowsy still, 

He rose, and stirred his weary sluggish frame, 

Which bore the iron trace of care and shame. 

Placidly dreaming, from all care exempt, 

Lay beauteous Linda, wreathed in floods unkempt 

Of raven hair falling in ringlets sleek 

Upon her shoulders fair, and dimpled cheek. 

So, Pasquino lightly lept upon the floor — 

But as he dressed, there came before the door 

A cowled and wrinkled priest, of mien severe 

All draped in black — of aspect sad and drear. 

"Young man what business brings you here " — he said. 

And frowning, added, pointing to the bed — 

"Why dost thou thus this lady here molest; 

Pray tell me stranger, what is thy bequest ?" 

" Most holy father, can I be so free 

To ask why such strange questions come to me ? 

Yonder reclining lady is my bride; 

And last night only I slept by her side." 

"Young man," with trembling voice the priest replied, 

"Against the holy church thy tongue has lied. 



LINDA AND PASQUIN. 89 

Thou canst not swear in fear of Hell's alarms, 
That thou hast passed the night in Linda's arms." 
" Aye, that I did! most righteous man, and swear 
That yester eve my form reclined there — 
And also can I prove, if not too bold 
By Linda's own dear lips, that she untold 
Welcomed me to her languid warm embrace, 
With all the winning charm of her sweet grace." 
"Stop! stop such blasphemy, thou reckless youth; 
Stop wretched, wretched man; for if the truth 
Thou just hast told, thy soul on Earth a Hell 
Thro' all thy life will feel, till Judgment's knell 
Damn thee eternally in seas of fire, 
For having uttered sacrilege so dire! 

Imprudent man, thou dost, thou canst not know 

That at this very hour, two days ago, 

That lady fair by fever's fiercest pain 

On yonder couch was in delirium lain; 

That thro' a night of anguish and distress, 

Her parched lips a stranger's name did bless; 

And at this very hour 'fore yester morn — 

Her struggling soul was from her body torn! 

For I it was, who heard her dying breath, 

For I it was, who closed her lips in Death." 

Thus spake the priest, and back the curtains threw; 

" See cavalier, her face is tinged with blue — 



90 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Sunken and grim — closed are those nitid eyes; 
That supple, pliant form ne'er more shall rise. 
Death my young friend is a most fearful scourge. 
But hark! I hear the distant funeral dirge, 
Whose dreamy cadence thrills the morning air, 
Sung for the lasting peace of one so fair, 
Whose soul has fled up to a happier sphere, 
Whose body for two days has rotted here." 

The horrid tale in all its awful truth, 
Stung like a scorpion on the shuddering youth, 
Who now recalled full well the scene gone by, 
And sank upon his knees with painful cry, 
Gazed at the priest, and at the one he'd lost, 
With maniac leer, then on his bosom crossed 
His trembling arms, and fell upon the floor 
With one convulsive sob, to rise no more! 



MOON-MUSIC. 



91 



MOON-MUSIC. 

Blond moonbeams shine in symphonies of light 
Upon the surface of a sleeping lake, 
Blue shadows, deep in dormant depths opaque 

Flit under dainty ripples, moonlit, bright, 

Around, the myriad voices of the night 

Blend with the moon's vague song, and make 
Wonderful concerts of soft tunes, that break 

In foam, in sheen, in toneful soulful flight: 

Sound like the kiss of wave upon a pearl — 
Sound like the flesh-thrill of an amorous girl — 
Music so dreamlike subtle, that no ear 

Save that of muser can enjoy its balm, 
Sound like the murmur of a falling tear — 
Sound like a twilight hush of endless calm. 



92 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



TURQUERIE. 

TO MY KANDJAR. 

Allah! 'tis sweet thy blue steel to caress, 

Cold, glittering as a star, 
And in warm palms its rubied haft to press, 

Oh beautiful Kandjar. 

I love to follow on its living sheen, 

Each undulate, graceful curve, 
And count the florid arabesques between, 

That fuse and coil and swerve. 

From hilt to tip one pure and shining line! 

They charm my enamored eyes; 
Allah be praised, thy Prophet's word divine 

Along each keen side lies. 

Friend of my warring life, what makes to-night 

Thy flawless splendor fade? 
Dost thou need Giaour blood to burn more bright ? 

Speak, proud and fearless blade. 



TURQUERIE. 93 

If so thy thirst my strong hand will refresh, 

And floods of gore shalt have, 
Drawn from the hated hearts, the quivering flesh 

Of Christian, hound and Sclav. 



94 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



SONNET. 

Petit lutin d'amour, dans ta grace mutine, 

Tu sais charmer les sens et tu sedius le coeur. 

Et les joyeux eclats de ta voix argentine, 
R6sonneut gentiment de joie et de bonheur. 

Sous le jais anime de tes yeux je devine 
D'adorables tr£sors d'innocente candeur, 

Et ta taille qui sous le satin se dessine, 
Promet des volupt6s d'enivrante langueur. 

Ton coeur megnon pourtaut est froid comme la glace; 
Sur ta levre un baiser facilement s'erTace, 

Et a ma passion tu u'ajoutes pas foi — 
Ta rigueur ne veut pas quelle soit partagee, 

Mais si je te tenais une heure pr&s de moi, 
Ton sein de marbre palpiterait Galathee\ 



FANTAISIE. 95 



FANTAISIE. 

Draped in light robes, with tarbouked noul, 

I love, half dreaming, to admire 
My chibouque's round and polished bowl, 

And watch the glow of opium's fire. 
Nacarat, golden, from my soul 

Its sensuous crackling can inspire — 
Rare fancies, which my mind console, 

When fading in each smoky gyre. 

An Indian temple, massive, grand, 

Looms 'fore my sight, and towers in air — 
Erected by a sorcerer's hand, 

Of architecture strangely rare. 
While near its sculptured portals stand 

Cohorts of slaves, and alm6es fair, 
Dancing their quaint-tuned saraband, 

With bronze-tanned skin, and floating hair. 

I rove within the Shiraz vale, 

Where onyx fountains jut and play, 

Where budding roses, pink and frail, 
Benfl rorid 'neath their floods of spray; 



96 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

I slumber midst the lilies pale — 

I listen to the linnet's lay, 
The subtle powers I quaff, unveil 

Sweet dreams of everlasting day. 

Far in a mosque I can discern, 

Vischnou's and Siva's altars high; 
I see the sacred fires that burn 

With quivering flamelets to the sky. 
I see the dolmaned Guebers stern, 

Worship their igneous god, and try 
With contrite hearts to win and earn, 

The honor by his hand to die. 

I soar in dreams, and ravished hear, 

Sung by some bard of Gulistan; 
A moallak soothing to the ear, 

An echo of the caravan 
Which passes by, morose and drear, 

Out from the town; while, mute, I scan 
The kandjared guards, with uncouth gear, 

Pacing the streets of Ispahan. 

On fair Corea's shelled stream, 
My fancy floats without restraint; 

Pagodas, wrought in porcelain, teem 
On every side, of fabric quaint. 



FANTAISIE. 97 



While genii pleased my sense to queme, 
The blue-foamed Yang-ste-Kiang, faint 

Before my gaze depict in dream, 
Ebbing its ripples with my plaint. 

Traversing spheres, I undismayed, 

Revel my view in Stamboul's sheen; 
Mahomet's chosen, pomp arrayed — 

Laden with glittering damascene, 
Passes with haughty cavalcade, 

Armed to the teeth with scimitars keen, 
While o'er the turrets of Belgrade 

I see the argent min'rets gleen! 

In Norway's fields, each frozen fjiord, 

Recalls the old chivalric time: 
The noble Saga of the Sword, 

The Eddas told in Runic rhyme. 
Olaf and Frithiof, with their horde 

Of stalwart warriors, chapped by rime, 
For me still battle on that sward, 

And chant their anthems in Drontheim. 

Upsala's rugose steeples dart 

Their granite splendor through the air; 
Odd marvel of old Northern art, 

Is this sad, solemn site of prayer. 

H 



98 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

And 'fore the shrines, so chill and swart— 
Kneel sufFring sinners, bent by care, 

As on the rough-hewn steps, the mart 
Begins its bustle, and its blare. 

The opium's Spirit, ah my quest, 

Changes the scene to fair Seville: 
Where alamedas, sun-love blessed, 

The atmosphere with perfumes fill, 
While jet-eyed damsels err or rest 

Beneath the shade of trellised vill, 
Taunting their gallants to a test, 

And time with cigarillos kill. 

Along the Chiaja, as I stroll, 

Vesuvius belches forth its fire: 
But I can free, untrammeled tfoul 

Deep in its jaws, and brave its ire. 
With winged feet from pole to pole, 

The spirits lead and never tire. 
The depth of depths is then my goal, 

The inner world is mine entire! 

Th' embattled turrets of the Rhine, 

Sombre and breme, now greet my sight: 

O'erhead the lucent asters shine, 
Shedding their calm opaline light. 



FANTA1SIE. 

I see within, elate with wine, 

The earnest face of dame and knight, 
Quaffing the nectar of the vine — 

Narrating tales of love and fight. 

Without, I see the mystic dells, 

The frisky, fire-haired gnomes at play: 
I hear the dorf-kirk's mellow bells — 

I hear the wand'ring minstrel's lay. 
The Elfen-King his host expels, 

To gambol till the dawn of day — 
While ouphs and fairies brew their spells, 

And toothless witches seek their prey. 

On Egypt's arid wastes, the Sphinx 

Startles my mind, now opium-drunk: 
My chain of thought, ungyved by links, 

Deep on the dreggy Nile is sunk. 
I hear the snorting of the lynx, 

The egret's shriek, the crane's dull crunk, 
The mammoth eye of Memnon winks — 

Chilling my ken, smoke-worn and shrunk. 

I see huge Cheops' tortuous crypt, 

Its labyrinths so chilly dark: 
I see its antique vaults time-nipped, 

Its shriveled mummies stiff and stark — 



99 



ioo DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

The ibex and the sacred script, 
The Copt's odd hierarchic mark, 

The iron urnlets jewel-tipped — 

And cinerous wealth of dust and chark. 

Fleeing cloud-wrapped, refreshed, I pass 

From out the sod of colcothar: 
To view the giant Kremlin's mass — 

Novgorod's domes, and Kazan's star. 
Here hirsute moujiks rough and crass, 

Swear by their saints, and by their Czar 
O'er ev'ry mug of creamy Kvas, 

They tipple with their Kaviar. 

My balmful drug lends power to sate 

The novel yearns for which I ache: 
Its genii, as I meditate 

My thirst for airy whims can slake. 
And with their skill, by gods innate, 

O'er worlds and spheres my spirit take, 
Until my sleep-cloyed eyes nictate, 

And I from my mad wandering wake. 



SONNET. ioi 



SONNET. 



Par dela les confins des spheres etoilees." 

— Bandelaire. 



A GEORGES EDGAR MONTGOMERY. 

Poete de vingt aus, intelligence inure, 

Tu tends vers l'avenir de supr£mes efforts; 
La Muse t'a league" des accents sains et forts, 

Ta proph£tique voix chante vibrante et pure. 

Malgre* les cris moqueurs de la critique obscure, 
Aguerrissant ton coeur pour de nouveaux essors, 
Tu vas, et Ton pressent les merveilleux tremors 

Que tu prodigueras un jour d'une main sure. 

Comme un aiglon hardi, qui sans fatigue plane 
Droit an soleil r£ve, dans le ciel diaphane, 
Poursuis ton noble but, et ne regrette pas 

La terre infructuense ec ses profonds abimes! 
L'Art luit devant tes yeuv: — tu te reposeras 

Sur ses sommets radieux, sur ses superbes cimes! 



102 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



PAPA'S ASLEEP 

I'm little Tot, and every day 

When light peeps through the shutter, 
I get up happy, fresh and gay, 

Ready for bread and butter. 

But first I beg God in my prayers 

To have me in his keeping, 
And then I softly creep down stairs 

While everyone is sleeping. 

For I am five years old, and go 
About the house at pleasure; 

My papa calls me pet; I know 
I'm mamma's darling treasure. 

So I find papers on the mat, 
And see what has been written, 

And then I breakfast with the cat 
And feed my little kitten — 

A wicked pussie, black as ink, 
Without one bit of mercy, 



PAPA'S ASLEEP. 

Who scratches me before I think, 
And bites my poor old nursie. 

But still I love it when it purrs, 
Much more than jam or honey, 

For when I dress it up in furs 
And rags, it looks so funny! 

And then I have a little pup, 
Whose hair is frizzled nicely, 

And he's awake when I get up, 
At six o'clock precisely. 

We play together for an hour, 
He's wolf and I am shepherd; 

And then I build a big block tower 
For Dollie and my leopard. 

And I have soldiers dressed in mail, 

To set upon the table; 
While pussie kills them with her tail, 

As fast as she is able. 

Then up the stairs I slyly creep, 
Doggie behind me leaping, 

And in my papa's bedroom peep, 
Where he is soundly sleeping; 



103 



104 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

And though he never moves his eyes, 
I sometimes think he sees me; 

And when he snores so loud, he tries 
To frighten me and tease me. 

But I am not afraid at all, 
He looks so nice and cosy, 

And so close to his side I crawl 
To tickle his fat nosie; 

And then, before I half have done, 

He never, never misses 
To catch me when I try to run, 

And smother me with kisses! 



AFFINITIES. 105 



AFFINITIES. 

A viewless phantom of sweet sound 
Lingers within my ravished brain; 
Scarce have I all its dream-notes found — 
Its thread of melody unwound — 

When strange! I lose the magic strain. 

I muse, while ev'ry fibre rings, 

And list again with avid ear 
To charm the harmony it sings — 
And tempt upon its tuneful wings — 

That echo of a godlier sphere. 

But ah! I cannot break the spell 

Although it haunteth me the same: 
But I have learnt to know it well, 
And think its meaning I can tell — 
For 'tis my heart that sighs thy name. 



io6 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



SONNET. 



TO 



The garden, crowned by soft and fragrant June, 
Blooms nonchalant beneath the mute, blue sky. 
In fleecy shoals the stainless clouds pass by. 

Each poplar quivers to a linnets' tune. 

The souls of roses by the zephyrs strewn, 
Perfume the air in myriads ere they die, 
And seem in redolent agony to lie, 

Lacking the benediction of the moon. 

An aureole of light tints every tree, 

Nature unsullied dreams her dream of love, 
Wooing the sun unto her nuptial bowers, 
And, in the emerald distance, I can see 
A maiden, white as Aphrodite's dove 

Pass like a queen amid her sister flowers! 



BAH! 107 



BAH! 



I see ten thousand men advance, 
With musket, cannon, glave and lance; 
They fight until the soil is red, 
And half have gone to meet the dead. 
* * * 

While in a village-church, not far away, 
I hear the austere, bearded preacher say, 
"Poor mortals here below, 
Praise God from whom all blessings flow." 

11. 

I see a mother hold her child, 
A shrunken thing by croup defiled. 
She counts its sobs, she counts its sighs, 
And in her nerveless arms it dies. 
■* * * 

While in the village-church, not far away, 
I hear the austere, bearded preacher say, 
" Poor mortals here below, 
Praise God from whom all blessings flow." 



io8 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



III. 

I see a fertile, sunny town, 
Fruitful on mountain slope and down. 
Pest passes; and a few remain, 
To registrate the cruel bane. 
* * * 

While in the village-church, not far away, 
I hear the austere, bearded preacher say, 
" Poor mortals here below, 
Praise God from whom all blessings flow." 



PERFUME. 109 



PERFUME. 

When thou art from me, when I cannot glance 
Upon thy rarest beauty, and when mind 
And soul are panoplied in veils unkind 

Of thought forgetful, errant; when a trance 

Dims all my sense, then a sweet spirit grants 
A power to feel thy presence: for I find 
Thine image in strange forms, when musings wind 

Coils of aromas, steeped like wines of France 

In fragrant vagueness, redolent and sharp; 
Perfumes that bring to mind a soul-thrilled harp, 
Odors ecstatic, smells of youth's desire, 

Musk blent with sound, or music heard through air. 
The scents of breaths that gasp with lovely fire 
Scents of thy loveliness, nude, white and fair! 



no DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



MY LOVER. 

I know that beauty incarnate is my own, 
That languid sunbeams slumber in my eyes, 

That no gem-glittering Queen on Asian throne, 
With my unique and peerless splendor vies. 

While Venus, Phryn£, Aspasia, have not shown 
Such rare perfection in such perfect guise. 

Yet no sweet love-word ever lulled my ear, 

I pass in my magnificence unwed. 
Men that might win me, seized by some vague fear, 

Tremble at my approach and turn the head, 
And even dumb beasts to whom all folk are dear, 

Cast wild eyes on me and crouch down in dread. 

I understand the awful mystery now, 

Beyond our mind's conception, so supreme 

That I dare not rebel or question how, 
An august presence in a shadowy dream 

Told me its grandeur, and hath made me bow 
Humble and mute before the things that seem. 

I know my radiant beauty's flawless worth, 
My tresses' ebon and my great eyes' light, 



MY LOVER. HI 

Are price and offering of no mortal birth, 

And were not fashioned for the ravished sight 

Of amorous beings on this common earth. 
But for a lover of far loftier right. 

I haste to meet him when the swift rain drips 
Thro' fern and forest, palpitant and warm, 

I feel his passionate kisses on my lips, 

When sensuous winds caress my swaying form. 

I note his jealousy by the moon's eclipse, 

His roused mistrust in every maddening storm. 

For me the gold auroras bud and bloom, 

He doth possess my spirit everywhere, 
I wait his advent in the mad simoum 

His messages of love burn space and air. 
In dawn's great glamour and in night's grave gloom 

I am invoked his rapture-moods to share. 

He shakes the trembling earth at my command, 
One glance of mine can calm his puissant ire, 

I hold the fate of nations in my hand, 
As weak and fragile as a rotting briar, 

And in the livid, lurid lightning grand 
I see his eyes gleam on me thro' the fire. 

The great sea, like a spaniel at my feet, 

Bounds up and fawns where'er I chance to go, 



DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

The sheen of perfect stars is only meet 
Amid the perfumes of my hair to glow, 

My regal lover, should my eyes entreat, 
Would to me immortality bestow. 

Thought's veil of darkness has been cast aside, 
I dare not doubt, I can but tremble and see 

With awful fear, yet with a speechless pride 
That this inevitable thing must be, 

I know my beauty has been deified, 
I know that God is amorous of me. 



SONNET. 



"3 



SONNET. 

Like the sweet Biblic Ruth, thou art most fair, 
The soul of Song dwells in thy tranquil gaze, 
Which by its calm serenity could raise, 

Divinest Hope from oceans of despair. 

To win thy radiant smile I dare not dare, 
My heart, so tortured by thy subtle ways, 
Can find no throb thy loveliness to praise, 

I simply bow and worship, as in prayer. 

Ah! why should I, audacious, strive to gain 
The secrets of thy lips, a look from thee ? 
Why should I hopeless for thy favor sigh ? 
For in thy smile, which is my joy and pain, 
Bewildered and alarmed, I only see 
The alluring promise of the Lurelei! 
1 



114 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



PERHAPS. 

Are we poor mortals confidently sure 

That it is right to say our friends are blest, 

When they have left us for a tomb impure, 
And go to what is called eternal rest ? 

Should we maintain as truth within our souls, 

That they are indefectibly content ? 
That they have vanished to celestial goals, 

And grieve to hear us woefully lament ? 

Must we of simple faith forever trust 

That utter peace is given to decay ? 
Must we believe men mutely turn to dust, 

And are inanimate till the Judgment Day? 

Ah no, alas! and those we worshiped so, 
Buried in dim, sepulchral crypts and chill, 

May be alive in ways we little know, 

May think, may love, may yearn, may suffer still! 

Awful and silent anguish may have dwelt 
In flesh inert, the world no longer knows, 



PERHAPS. 115 

And horrible Infernos may be felt, 
Ere sweet annihilation brings repose. 

For all the numberless and coffined dead, 
Freed from this life of odium and of sin, 

May writhe with madness in their earthy bed, 
Conscious when putrefaction doth begin! 

The one we loved the most, in graveyards dark, 
May sob and shudder at the fatal term, 

When over withered limbs unclean and stark, 
Lazily crawls the first dark eyeless worm. 

And ah, the agony that they may feel! 

The terror of such solitude! the hells 
Of thought no word or image may reveal, 

In tortured brains where hope no longer dwells. 

Quick, wild appeals and prayers would then be vain, 
Christ hears them not, the universe is dumb, 

And they may lie immovable in pain, 
Awaiting laggard rot that will not come. 

******* 

Therefore, oh ye bereaved, whene'er you see 

The forms once cherished placed beneath the sod, 

Think with chilled, beating hearts of what may be, 
And praise in your despair no callous God! 



n6 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



FROTHINGS: MILLERS AND COQUETTES. 

THE MILLER. 

It sweeps about the lantern's glare, 

With wondering wing; 

And has no sting, 
It knows not Death is in the air — 

Poor thing — 

THE LOVER. 

He knows not she is a coquette, 

And yet will fling 

His life just blossoming, 
To please her idle whim, her luring stare, 

Poor thing! 



TO MY FATHER ON HIS BIRTHDAY. 117 



TO MY FATHER ON HIS BIRTHDAY. 

IMPROMPTU. 

I never see a roadside flower, 
Without regretting its sad fate, 

If some dull hand in idle hour, 
Should cull and not appreciate! 

Nature is wrong to thus create, 

Fair buds that time or boors destroy; 

For such gems none should desecrate, 
But leave them to their transient joy. 

So 'tis with thee, oh human rose, 
Whene'er I see thee calm and great: 

I think how life should spare thee woes, 
And more thy value consecrate! 



n8 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



INFLUENCE. 

I fear to guess why such a morbid mood 
Should in my callous spirit slowly grow, 
But I have felt within me madly glow 

An utter greed for desolate solitude. 

Phantasmal fancies, bizarre and unwooed, 
Have urged me with resistless force to go 
Where chill winds over cemeteries blow, 

And where among dank tombs the strange birds brood. 

Vague hands, invisible, have often led 
My vacillating steps to such drear ways, 
I know not wherefor, but in deep dismay, 
Whene'er I roam amid the hosts of dead, 
I feel beside me in the spectral haze 
The wan, attendant skeleton of Gray. 



SOUVENIR. 



119 



SOUVENIR. 

Imagine now that breathless hour, 

When lovers thro' the glimmering start! 
Light stepping to the ombred bower 
Where beauty trysts, to yield the dower, 
Which he deserves who wins the heart. 

Mine, loveliest of all, reclines, 

Looped in white fragrant folds — and dreams- 
. One little arm in the other twines; 
Her bosom's soft and round designs 

Show in the gas-light sheltered beams. 

Tho' even sleeping, still she waits, 

For when I enter — turn the key — 

Her passioned sigh her dream relates, 

And o'er her heart, the sphered mates 

Heave for my kisses — and for me. 

Her parted lips, her breath divine, 
Her soul unfettered, still I claim — 

For when I wake her — she is mine, 

And I would rather life resign 
Than ne'er to feel it in her frame. 



120 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Soft on the nest, and by her side, 

I first droop faint, with Love's amaze — 

Then, 'neath her torse, my arm I glide, 

Kiss to her lips the coral tide — 
Kiss to her eyes the sapphire gaze. 

'Tis all of Heaven, and all of Earth, 

To feel the rousing poignant trust — 
Flame like a star, whose ardent birth 
Might drain the spheres, to utter dearth, 
And burn a firmament to dust. 

That fulgid fervor welds us both, 

That lightning storm melts core to core; 
We need no pledge, demand no oath, 
Our hearts are throbbing troth to troth, 
We live, we love, we know no more. 

The morning gleams — I go — 'tis o'er; 

The breeze comes fresh the lattice through, 
I hear the distant billows roar, 
And ah! they sigh upon the shore; 

Like memories of my nights with you. 



HENRY IRVING. 



HENRY IRVING. 

By toil and grand tradition, you have found 
The luminous path to an undying fame! 
Great throngs bring willing tribute to your name, 

In many a heart you stand enshrined and crowned! 

Wit, humor and fancy in your soul abound; 

None can your noble life dispraise or blame; 

And that rich laughter which a god would claim, 
Still rings about our ears with mellow sound. 

Most peerless master! honor of the stage, 
Long may you live the meed of all to earn; 
Serene among the treasures of your heart, 
Proving to men that genius has no age, 
While future generations love and learn 
The marvelous secrets of your perfect art! 



122 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



E. L. DAVENPORT. 



AS HAMLET. 



Doubt plows deep furrows in thy restless brain, 
Filled with dull seeds that bring no definite fruit: 
With fancies troubled, vague, irresolute, 

It swerves to sweet, and strives to hush its pain! 

Sure, and not sure, it vacillates again — 
Now fired by faith, now sullen as a brute 
In stupor; while thy galled heart sad and mute, 

Struggles and doubts, oh pale and fitful Dane! 

Interpreter of thoughts so grandly penned, 
Thy toil hath crowned them with an aureole 

Of charm; oh! Hamlet, lover, hater, friend! 
With Art thine aim, with Art supreme as goal, 

The rich rare glories of thy genius blend, 
Completing all in one great flood of soul! 



E. L. DAVENPORT AS "OTHELLO." 123 



E. L. DAVENPORT. 



AS OTHELLO. 



Oh, how my soul blooms up and clings to thine, 
When from the distant Turks thou com'st to claim 
With artless diction and with pulse of flame, 

Thy Desdemona's eager love benign! 

Thy heart of bronze by twenty wars untame, 
Throbs with delicious passion, leoline 

Of force, yet like a child's in charm; thine aim 
Aspires to cull what she would fain resign! 

But when Iago with foul phrasing tells 
The bitter lies no scorn can e'er assuage; 

How thy swart face reveals the hidden Hells 
That seethe within thee, and mad tumult wage! 

Then as thy frenzied anger grandly swells, 
I love to hear the splendors of thy rage! 



124 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



E. L. DAVENPORT. 



AS MACBETH. 



Ambition, like a cancer, rots thy breast, 
With furious spasms, while remorseful fear, 
Whispers of peril in thy coward ear, 

Oh! superstitious thane with dreams opprest. 

Thou need'st thy callous lady's hint austere, 
To fully crush thy conscience and unrest, 

When in thy grave eyes one last pitying tear, 
Dries up and scorches hellward at her quest! 

The shade of Shakespeare hovers through the gloom 
Of vanished centuries, in the vale of Death; 

It sees its buds of fancy blossom and bloom 

By thy fond art to flowers, and its strong breath, 

Calls unto thee in rapture from the tomb, 

"Oh, son of mine, thou art my heart's Macbeth! " 



E. L. DAVENPORT AS ''RICHARD 111." 125 



E. L. DAVENPORT. 



AS RICHARD III. 



Hybrid and shrunken Caesar, odd-boned clown; 

Lynx-like, rude, wanton, treacherous, severe; 

Thy cold red eyes, over thy pallid leer 
And hump accursed, glisten when glancing down. 

I see in thee vague warnings of a bier, 

A cunning smile half dwindling to a frown, 

A sneer, a threat, a blasphemy of fear, 
A toss of head that craveth for a crown! 

Intolerant passions gnaw thee to the core, 

Thy bosom is rent with keen impatient smart; 

Hates, hidden, stenchful as a leper's sore, 

Arise from out thy dead, remorseless heart * 

Thou art grim Richard, and thou can'st restore 
His odious presence by thy wondrous art! 



126 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



E. L. DAVENPORT. 



AS RICHELIEU. 



Thou art that puissant man who could withstand 
The will of kings, who paved a gory way 

Up to fame's temple; destined to command 
With rigid brows, with cruel, crafty sway. 

France felt his might and dared not disobey, 
When, scarlet-robed, imperious, and grand 
He held her white throat in his bony hand, 

Stained with the blood of Cinq-Mars and Chalais! 

History revived breathes in thy language terse: 
Thy brow is gray with shadows of foul racks; 
Tiger then fox, thine iron passions wax 

Strong, and tower up like some black plumed hearse! 

For e'en when hurling forth thy churchly curse, 
I see behind thee gleam the headman's axe! 



£. L. DAVENPORT AS "SIR GILES." 127 



E. L. DAVENPORT. 



AS SIR GILES. 



Ne'er yet have passions with fierce pangs intense, 
Loomed up so grandly livid, to defy 
With withering hate the awed and hollow sky 

As thine! they haunt the hot and harrowed sense 

With throes of wonder; from mad lips thy cry 
Of rage, turns foam in its magnificence 

Of utter anguish, while thy lurid eye 

Glints through its blood in agonies immense! 

Thou King of Tragedy, unique, superb! 

What triumph thine to force strong wills to start! 
How sweet for thee to see the masses curb 

Their tremulous heads all haloed by thine art! 
And feel the power the skeptic to disturb; 

Thou peer of Garrick with a Talma's heart! 



128 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



CARLOS SOBRINO. 

Though young in years, thou hast the sacred flame: 
In thee pure Gottschalk's dreamy graces shine, 
The soul is thine of Liszt and Rubinstein, 

Fraternity with Chopin thou canst claim. 

Plante and Thalberg both in thee combine, 
The highest sphere is thy ambitious aim, 
And thou canst tread the rugged paths of fame, 

Blessed by thy muse, melodious and divine. 

Modest art thou, and fired by studious zeal; 
But time will lead thee to the cherished goal, 
For thou hast feeling, sympathy, and soul, 

And all thy master's meaning thou dost feel. 
Therefore pursue thy way with fearless mind, 
And thou shalt be like all of these combined. 



FRANCISCO MAZZOLENI. 129 



FRANCISCO MAZZOLENI. 

Great Donizetti would have loved thee well, 
Had he but heard thy voice supreme and rare 
Ring in Edgardo's terrible despair, 

Or by the Borgia's devastating spell. 

No tones more rich and wonderful e'er fell 

From human lips, and their sweet sound could bear 
Far from the mind all vestiges of care, 

And all the sorrow of the soul dispel. 

The world has echoed with thy matchless fame, 
Thy brows are laureled from the fields of Art, 
And now thou standest beautiful and strong; 
While countless lovers of thy glorious name, 
Hail the nobility of thy valiant heart, 

And crown thee monarch of Italian Song! 

K 



130 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



PIETRO BIGNARDI. 

True art within your mind has found a shrine, 
Where fire and feeling beautifully blend; 
To every role nobility you lend, 

And skill with taste most soulfully combine. 

Raoul sublime and Gonarro benign 

Find by your voice new beauty to commend, 
And faithless Ugos pitiable end 

Is, as the master's melodies, divine. 

Your brow is decked and laureled by sweet fame, 
And in art's annals your resplendent name 

Will e'er be greeted and will flourish long; 
For now an earned repose has come at last, 
And in the future, even as in the past, 

Admiring throngs will hail you "King of Song.' 



TO KARL FORMES. 131 



TO KARL FORMES. 

Perchance the voice that slumbers in thy breast 
Was once a Titan's, when the world was young, 
While the grand echo of the songs he sung 

Is now by thee in majesty possessed. 

The longings of the world it has expressed 

In marvelous accents, and with puissant tongue; 
And lo! it seems that thy great soul has wrung 

The secrets from the demons and the blest. 

And, when its grandeur falls upon mine ear, 
Full of divinest power, in flawless ease, 

In chants sublime with mighty passions weighed, 
Ravished, I pause, and wondering, seem to hear, 
Blent with the laugh of Mephistopheles, 
The voice of Peter preaching his Crusade! 



I 3 2 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



CARL MARIA VON WEBER. 

Great dreamer, from the Schwarzwald's dreaded night, 
Thy spirit brought strange sounds to haunt our ears; 
Concerts sublime that teemed with ghostly fears, 

And wondrous strains that fill the soul with fright. 

But, with the dawn, thy muse leaps to the light, 

Dipping white wings in hope that soothes and cheers; 
Again, in sadder ways, it claims our tears, 

Until thy waltzes to the dance invite. 

Oh, perfect poet of the songful heart, 

Thou hast combined in laughter and in pain 
The varied moods within all bosoms rife. 
And with a peerless grace and stainless art, 
Enchanter of the senses and the brain, 
Thy genius shows us life and all of life! 



CHARLES GOUNOD. 133 



CHARLES GOUNOD. 

The muse of melody from nameless gloom, 

Courts the pale bards of earth to win their song: 
In wondrous tones she sings the weird night long 

Peans of life or lullabies of the tomb. 

Delicious anthems from her essence bloom, 

In Babels of soft sound, that blend and throng, 
To tempt some lover, who, of fancy strong, 

Can in bold thought her suavest charm assume. 

You who have gazed on calm Italian nights, 
Upon the muse with meditative eyes, 

Did not then follow in the grander flights 

Her warbling soul, nor yearn for Mozart's prize, 

But were content, and fame thy toil requites, 
To mark the deathless music of her sighs! 



134 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



TO SARAH BERNHART. 

I hail you, holy and entrancing nun! 
Model of sanctity and faith supreme, 
You are of piety the living dream, 

Vestal, your soul is purer than the sun. 

You are a thousand prayers all blent in one! 

Angelic banners round your fair head stream! 

Aureoles of saintly glory on you beam! 
You, you, alone, on Earth have Heaven begun! 

And when I see you in your various roles, 
Your sacred face hurls back all fears of hell, 
And with a faith intense mine eyelids close! 
Then, I believe in most celestial goals, 
My thoughts upon religious matters dwell, 
For you are peace, and candor, and repose! 



GEOVANNI TAGLIAPIETRA. 135 



GEOVANNI TAGLIAPIETRA. 

IN FAVORITA. 

You sung the noble and the perfect part 

Of Castille's King with passion and with grace, 
All Donizetti's spirit lit your face; 

The notes came trembling from your very heart. 

I listened, raptured, to your flawless art, 

To all the mellow tones that charmed the space, 
And in your modulation I could trace 

The magic source that made the warm tears start. 

And as I gazed a strange and marvelous sound 
Fell on my ear at the finale's close — 

A sound that came alone from heavenly lands, 
And then I understood, in wonder bound, 
That o'er the grand, melodious tumult rose 
The ghostly applause of Donizetti's hands. 



136 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



TO VICTOR HUGO * 

IMPROMPTU. 

Hail unto thee grand literary giant! 

Great voice that rings among us like a thunder: 
Impeccable, unique, without a blunder, 

To all in Nature comprehensive, pliant! 

In thy rare art, immense and self-reliant, 

Thy pure verse rends old crumbling creeds asunder, 
Genius supreme, strange and immortal wonder, 

We love thy omniscient heart, thy soul defiant! 

We love the changes of thy spirit tender, 

Serene, majestic bard with grave brows hoary! 

The fortress of thy will knows no surrender, 
Poet, philosopher of song and story, 

Both foe and friend now celebrate thy splendor, 
And unborn ages will proclaim thy glory! 

*,Tjpon receiving a letter from him. 



CHARLES BAUDELAIRE. 137 



CHARLES BAUDELAIRE. 

Giant of fancies grand, sun-perfumed soul! 

Thy bubbling thoughts held revel in thy brain; 

Thy songs of sorrows sad, mistrusts and pain 
In rhythmic harmonies forever roll. 

Thy spirit-muse sought out the vivid whole 

Of vast conceits: it spurned all tare, while grain, 
Sweet grain, of wondrous sweetness by it lain 

Proves that thy soaring soul attained its goal. 

Thou king of voyellous words, of puissant rhyme, 
Thy clear eye saw beyond all Night, all Time, 

Yet have thy regal musings left no trace. 
Dead, thou art still ignored — no welcome nod 

Acclaims thy ghost; few knew thy name or face, 
Thou of all poets who could speak with God! 



138 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



FERDINAND HILLER. 

To-day thou standest laureled before all, 
Deep in the hearts of multitudes enshrined! 
The soul of music hovers in thy mind, 

And hastens on white pinions at thy call. 

Thy great conceptions manifold enthrall, 

And in the story of thy life we find 

One flawless record gloriously signed, 
And towers of strength that will not swerve or fall. 

Whene'er thy strains are wafted to my ear, 

Full of most subtle meaning, sweet and strong, 
I see in dreams the Rhenish vales in bloom, 
And with keen ravishment I seem to hear 
The mighty genius of old German song 

Sing to the stars beneath the Schwarzwald's gloom! 



GERARD DE NERVAL. 139 



GERARD DE NERVAL. 

Thy gentle life was one long spirit-dream! 

Pale envy on thy white soul left no stain! 

Maugre ingratitude, neglect, disdain, 
Thou held'st all men in sovereign esteem! 

Poor wanderer through the earth's broad ways, thy theme 
Was one of utter peace; thy charming strain 
Lulled with delicious balm our mental pain, 

Greek in its Art, and in its Faith supreme! 

Poet, the muse that such soft accents gave 

To this bad world, stronger than antique creeds 
Lives in our hearts, where naught her beauty mars. 
As thy calm life has been, so is thy grave, 

Tranquil and sweet amid the flowers and reeds, 
Serene beneath the splendor of sad stars! 



i 4 o DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



LANDSCAPE. 

A setting sun begilds the sand, 

The pink-tipped wavelets fall and rise, 

Murmurless, as the rays expand — 

Their gold-streaked splendor through the skies. 

A beach of shells and oolites rare, 
Receives the Ocean's cool embrace; 

Above, the osprey cleaves the air, 
Soaring with curves of febrile grace. 

No cot, no sward, no trace of man, 

No passing sail to intervene: 
Blue billows far as eye can scan, 

Red heavens floating o'er the scene. 



THE HEART'S SAD SONG. 141 



THE HEART'S SAD SONG. 

There is an antique song, a quaint old tune, 
Hidden within my heart, divinely sweet; 
The theme is of a delicate conceit, 

Vague and mysterious as some Northern Rune, 

A sound that Donizetti in his June 

Might still have found, tender yet incomplete — 
A strain that spirits might alone repeat, 

Or larks invisible that haunt the moon. 

Whene'er its magic melody I hear, 

Now calm with peace, now tremulous with dread, 
I picture to my soul a face once dear; 

Its graceful rhythm seems a fawn-like tread, 
Past sighs return and gentle ghosts appear: 

Oh wondrous song! art thou that voice now dead ? 



142 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



LANDSCAPE. 

A mountain chain — each snow-bathed peak 
Craggy and shapeful, drinks the mist. 

Below the cloud-mark, eagles seek 
Their eyries by the sleet-winds kisst. 

Mighty Titanic towers of rock, 

Huge Lylacqs raised by giant hands 

To climb to heaven, and to mock 
The power of God on holy strands 

Lay crushed and sundered, overturned, 
Chaos of granite, earth and stone: 

Vast grave preadamite, well earned 
For those who shaped it for a throne. 

And when Night, hushful, inks the chain 
With darkness, then the torrents' roar 

Soundeth like giant lungs in pain, 
Cursing their God for sins of yore. 

The souls and spirits of a race 
Damned for all ages suffer there, 

And caged in stone, bereft of grace, 
Await their judgment with despair. 



ZAIDA. 



143 



ZAIDA. 

Sleepily, languorous, time to beguile, 

Wrapped in a harnacs' silk, indolent, rests 
Zaida the princess of Egypt, whose jests 

Show all the pearl and the rose of her smile. 

Eunuchs stand nigh to her waiting her quests, 
There far beyond on the rippleless Nile, 
Sluggishly dreams the uncouth crocodile, 

Dreamily rise the fair princess' breasts. . . . 

Thinks she of Maleb and closes her lids. . . . 
See yonder dust near the gray pyramids! 

Her Maleb is coming the sand-cloud attests, 
Zaida has seen it and watched it awhile. . . . 

See now the fluctuant wealth of her breasts, 
See now the pearl and the rose of her smile. 



144 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



QUATRAIN. 

A floweret culled by the Almighty's hand, 
Fell from His hand to Earth, 

It fluttered gently downward to the land 
And Italy had birth. 



MOODS OF MADNESS. 



145 



MOODS OF MADNESS. 

SONG OF A FIEND. 

See the Hell wine in the cup! 
Blood and bitter mandrake blent; 

Who will drink with me and sup ? 
Sniff the foul lees' putrid scent, 
Here's to Hate and Discontent, 
Who will sip it up ? 

Gall of toad and muck of stoat, 
Brew it thick and make it strong, 

Ooze and slime, where fungi bloat, 
To its livid drops belong. 
Drain its sweetness with a song. 
Let it burn the throat. 

Lethe's mire has dyed it most, 
Vice has spat its cud within, ' 

Every soul of Tophet's host 
Stirs its cauldron's seething din, 
With the spoon of Hell called Sin. 
Pledge Sin in a toast. 

L 



i 4 6 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Here's to that which soon or late, 
Turneth noble men to brutes, 

Maketh vile what once was great. 
Sip the nectar, thrum the lutes, 
Rotting tree for rotten fruits, 
Here's a toast to Hate! 

Drink and drain, oh men of dust, 
Fill the toxic tankard's brim, 

Sin is sharp, it will not rust, 

Howl the splendors of its hymn, 
Hell will clutch ye, gaunt and grim 
Ye who pledge to Lust. 

Here's to that which gnaws unseen, 
Thro' all flesh a path of blight, 

Gloaming on the wench or queen, 
Aiding crime to spoil and smite. 
Grim at day and mad by night 
Here's a health to Spleen! 

Naught of pure on Earth is left. 

Dead are Honor, Faith and Hope. 
Sin is King, and men bereft 

Perish by the axe and rope. 

Drencht with night they dare not cope, 
Here's a pledge to Theft. 



MOODS OF MADNESS. 147 

See the black wine's bubbling flood, 
Baal can chuckle, Satan sneers, 

Hell yawns drowsily in mud. 
Tell me what on Earth appears 
Thus to cause our hoots and leers, 
Men are pledging blood. 

Here's to Love and spare the stink, 
Gaudy flower with rot at core, 

Blooming on Hell's very brink, 
Mortals woo it, pray, implore, 
Virgin-skinned and heart of whore, 
Yet the world will drink. 

Famished fiends of fire and slime, 

Fill the awful bowl again; 
Quick, be spry, another time, 

Pour in Want and pour in Bane, 

Here's to Passion and to Pain, 
Devils! here's to Crime. 

Fill again, men will not rest, 

Blur with wine their arid eyes, 
Sow the cancers in the breast, 

Nearest where the heart-blood lies, 

Teach fools how a leper dies, 
Let them drink to Pest! 



i 4 8 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Make the fetid cauldron flow, 

Murder reigns and men are slaves, 

There is place for more below, 

Make fresh wine and dig new graves, 
Hear the bellowing crowd that raves, 
Here's to War and Woe! 

Search, I bid ye, pool and slough, 
Pour the gall from adders' stings 

In the wine, 'tis sour I vow, 
By the lying tongue of kings, 
Now we need more bitter things, 
Men drink perjury now! 

Here's to everything that's vile, 
Envious critic, crafty priest, 

Faithless friend and flatterer's wile, 
Bite of snake and hoof of beast, 
Last, but of the list not least, 
Here's to woman's smile. 

One more pledge, and drain it well, 
Pour the nightshade in the bowl, 

As our angry anthems swell, 
Draw damnation to the soul, 
Up! drink, drink the bitter whole, 
Here's a pledge to Hell! 



TETE A TETE. 149 



TETE A TETE. 

'Neath the soft mellow light of the silk shamas, 
We were supping together, long after the ball. 
In the scarlet and gold of her Indian shawl, 

She sat nibbling a partridge and toyed with her^glass. 

We had chatted of music, of art, and of all 

The grave people or gay at the f&te we saw pass, 

And I dared to broach love, too, if well I recall, 

While I sipped my chablis with some splendid cold bass. 

As I gazed on her beauty with fond eyes that dreamed 
Through the undulate smoke of a blond cigarette, 

I perceived her bite slowly a truffle — it seemed, 
To my mind, over-languid with poetry yet, 

As she touched the black dainty with white teeth^that 
gleamed, 
Like a glitter of pearls in a setting of jet. 



150 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



TO 



Why wouldst thou thoughtless spurn the easing sweet 

I offer to thy spleen-toucht, waiting life 
Of patient yearn, of baffled, heart-hushed strife ? 

Are not thy crying love-lusts sharp as knife ? 
Dreamy as music; hot as lava heat? 

Why, when I beg thee at thy tiny feet 
Dost thou refuse ? when body — bosom — rife, 

Thy am'rous answerings my bold queries meet. 

If thy heart's fancy willeth, why delay ? 

For will it doth; with youth's and craving's might 
Those riot joys, acme of world's delight 

Rest with thy simple soul's yea — so, ignite 
Crude, mordant flames of ardor, that can stay, 

And check all sweeter blisses by their sway 
Until dreams olden can a new dream cite, 

Till whims blood-satisfied can facie away. 



LANDSCAPE. 



I5i 



LANDSCAPE. 

A sky of flame; the Ganges scorched — 
Sluggish and rippleless lolls by: 

Marvels of stone, pillared and porched, 
Thrust their pied cupolas on high. 

Alm6es of eye k'hol-tinted, dance — 
A mantling whirl beneath a palm, 

Where cloyed inert in haschisch trance 
A bronze-skinned Rajah tempteth calm. 

With garb striated, black as ink, 
Two Delhi virgins fan with zest, 

The musing prince, whose senses sink 
In promised dreams of Zendavest. 

The Kussir's melody, rich, deep 
Filleth with song the arid air: 

Cradled by rocking rhythms, sleep — 
In hamac frail comes unaware. 

The kaat and sherbet palate-soft, 

Tip his hot tongue with cool surprise, 



1 52 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

An ombrel shades, while far aloft 
The attar-gulls' sharp perfumes rise. 

The subtle fragrance charms the birds — 
Gold-feathered, as they bless its sweet; 

And warble unknown graceful words 

Rhyming with Sun, with Scent, with Heat. 



CONS UMP TION. 153 



CONSUMPTION. 

Knowing that thou art doomed, thou lov'st me more, 
Oh passionate, sweet victim, reed-like, frail; 
Upon thy cheeks, now hectic, now so pale, 

Wanes the fair, delicate grace that I adore. 

A few sad months are all thy future store, 
And even despairing prayers can not avail 
Against Death's icy fingers that assail .... 

God will not pity now when I implore. 

Darling, let love upon thy swooning face, 
Flowerwise, unto the last serenely bloom; 
With dying kisses waft thy soul to me, 
Cling to me closely, and each warm embrace 
Recall, when in thy coffin's ghastly gloom 
The amorous worms cling madly unto thee! 



154 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



THE PREACHER. 



A COURTESAN SPEAKS. 



Deep in the temple's gloom with joy supreme, 
I listened to the music of his voice, 

The life of our meek Savior was his theme, 
The agony on Calvary his choice. 

Rapt and entranced, I felt a holy power 
Lift from my mind the pall of sin's eclipse, 

And drank the words that fell for one sweet hour 
In warm persuasion from his sacred lips. 

He told the ever new and wondrous tale, 
In puissant ways that made the fibers thrill, 

And swayed the congregation mute and pale, 
By the magnificent empire of his will. 

I felt my heart like some deer«startled, leap 
Within me, when with pious words that toss 

And tear down unbelief, and make men weep, 
He told the awful story of the Cross. 



THE PREACHER. 



155 



The fire of faith glowed in his noble face, 

It seems as if some scrap of Heaven were sent 

To move him with its glory and its grace, 
He was so grand, so pure, so eloquent! 

Unchidden tears filmed his seraphic eyes, 

When in an ecstacy of prayer sublime 
He cried: "Oh! sinners, He whose love ne'er dies 

Now bids ye all repent while there is time! " 

He ceased; he knelt; the multitude all thrilled, 

In silence from the tabernacle passed, 
But I, who was with thoughts conflicting filled, 

Stupidly stood and lingered to the last. 

Then in my dazzled mind there slowly came 
The strong conviction of some great distrust, 

There rose a sense of infamy and shame, 
A new-born feeling of intense disgust. 

For that same man who could such thoughts conceive, 
Who spake in that sweet voice of Christ's great woe, 

Had hired me for his lust thai Sabbath eve, 
And was to meet me in a bagnio! 



t 5 6 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



NIAGARA. 

Chaos and void of worlds preadamite! 

Lylacqs of clouds, Babelian towers of air! 
Maelstroms of seething elements, shade-night, 

Immensities of space, ignescent glare 

Of shifting meteors, dire, terrific, bright! 

Bewildering grandeurs of a rising prayer! 
God heard your cries for formal life, and light, 

Pellucid, star-sprent heavens glimmered, fair! 

A world was born, vast shapes, grand seas were fused 
In perfect symmetry, and naught accused 

The Lord of folly, save Niagara's land, 
Whose soul rebelled and mocked a gift of mud; 

So smote He it with fire-glaive firm of hand, 
The wound brings forth white cataracts of blood! 



BLUE. 157 



BLUE. 

An azure smile the heavens wear, 
A broad grand smile, intensely blue, 

The turquoise tint has dyed the air — 
The breeze seems colored by its hue . 

Cerculean blue, the sea below — 
Lies like the mirror of the sky; 

Its blue is of a richer glow, 

Its changings wondrous to the eye. 

The maid I love hath orbs of blue, 
A melting blue, faith-lit by me; 

Her steadfast sapphire glancings, true — 
Have gulfs of cobalt harmony. 

Once sailed we o'er the blue, blue seas, 
Scudding beneath far bluer skies; 

And worlds of blue, on bended knees, 
I found within her loving eyes. 



158 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



SONNET. 

In great grand worlds above, ray spirit soars, 
Above our turbid spheres, above in air: 
Roaming insatiate through the planet's glare 

To sombrous vales! to sunless, moonless shoresl 

In cloud-cathedrals prays it — and implores 
The vital virile vim to win the rare 
Prized benison of reaching regions, where 

The souls of fancy hide their precious stores. 

Above! above! errs on my spirit-thought, 
Spurred on to search for things unseen, untaught, 

Tremulous, hope-girt, it pursues its flight 
Through skies crepuscular of lurid glow 

Bearing back marvels from beyond the Night — 
To feed my mind awaiting them below! 



COLUMBIA TO CUBA. 159 



COLUMBIA TO CUBA.* 

Hark to wails of distress and of sadness, 

That soar on the blood-weighted air; 
Hear the arrogant Spaniard in madness 

Blend his laugh with thy suffering prayer. 
Hear his insolent anthems of gladness, 

Mock thine agonized rending of hair. 

Thou hast fought, and hast hoped, and hast waited, 

Oh Cuba, and still thou art strong, 
Thou hast curbed 'neath the wrath unabated, 

Of tyrants who scoff at thy wrong. 
Thou hast suffered their frenzies unsated, 

Thou hast bowed by their scourge and their thong. 

We are wearied of crime and of blunder, 
We are wearied of darkness and gloom; 

We are worn of this rapine and plunder, 
And the Spaniard's insatiable tomb; 

While our ears are made deaf by their thunder, 
Of cannon that crash and that boom. 

* Originally written in Spanish for the Lone Star Cuba Junta Association. Sang 
and rented by them in 1873. 



160 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Through the wail and the wind of thy slaughters, 
Through the rise and the flow of thy tears; 

Thoujimplorest our aid o'er the waters, 
And thou beg'st us to solace thy fears. 

Thou bewailest thy lost sons and daughters, 
And thy green fields untilled thro' the years. 

Thou hast given thy charm and thy beauty, 
Thou hast given thy body as dower; 

Thou hast languished core-stricken in duty 
To a rotten and dissolute power; 

Thou'hast swooned in their clutch, and their booty 
Though helpless they strive to deflower. 

The red banner of Spain is now flying, 

Her legions are thirsting for lives; 
We still hear the wan patriots crying 

To martyrs who groan in their gyves, 
We are deafened by shrieks from the dying, 

We are blind by the glitter of knives. 

But enough of such tears and lamenting, 
For the hour sounds to stifle all sighs; 

To o'erwhelm thy proud foes unrelenting, 
To combat, to revolt, to despise; 

Thou hast lingered enough in repenting, 
'Tis the time to awake, to arise. 



COLUMBIA TO CUBA. 161 

Ah, 'tis many a year we have missed thee 

Fair Cuba and seen thee downtrod; 
We have stopped not to comfort, nor kisst thee, 

We have spurned thy long suffering sod; 
But we come now to aid and assist thee, 

Aye for Liberty, Honor and God. . . . 

To thy land of despair and commotion, 

To thy homes in distress and alarm, 
We will hasten with ardent emotion, 

We will save thee from shame and from harm, 
O'er the mighty expanses of Ocean, 

We will stretch our omnipotent arm. 

They have trod on thee Cuba, and spattered 
Thy garments with mire and with gore; 

They have driven thee ragged and tattered 
To bend down thy proud brow and implore; 

Yet they fail, for tho' stricken and shattered, 
Thou shalt live and shalt prosper once more. 

Hear the rage of the mass and the million, 

As we chafe and we wait in discords; 
Every heart beats to meet the Castillian, 

With the cannon and clashing of swords; 
We are fain to unfurl our pavilion, 

O'er the carrion of braggarts and lords. 

M 



162 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

We are tired of the Spaniard's hot curses, 
We are tired of their murderous threats; 

Their old roster of insults still nurses 
Great fevers of hates and regrets; 

Let us pay them with shrouds and with hearses, 
Let the red blood then cancel our debts. 

Thro' our cannon smoke shall ye the splendid, 
Bright white of our standard acclaim, 

And the blue of that flag will be blended 
With thy heavens oh Cuba, the same, 

While the wrath of its crimson descended, 
Shall gleam through the blood and the flame. 

But enough of such talk and presuming, 

'Tis no time to delay or inquire; 
'Tis the hour the dark garb for assuming 

Of a vengeance whose blows will prove dire; 
We must answer thee Spain with the booming 

Of cannon and flashing of fire. 

So succumb not to tears and despairing, 
Oh Cuba, down-trampled, defied; 

We will choke the wild beasts that are tearing, 
The flesh from thy blood-streaming side; 

Swoon not yet for our armies are bearing, 
That help which for years we denied. 



COLUMBIA TO CUBA. 163 

To thy island then, sun-blesst and florid, 

To thy homes on the murmuring sea, 
We will drag our war chariots horrid, 

Thro' thy legions of foemen that flee; 
We will dry the deep wounds on thy forehead 

And proclaim thee Great, Honored and Free. 



164 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



THE JUNGFRAU. 

Magnet of Ice! white-eyed, supreme, immense! 
Thy grand imperial whitenesses of awe 
Blur all my songful thought, and potent, draw 

Into thy bosom's glooms my wandering sense; 

Rapt by the sheen diaphanous, intense 
Of thy white virgin beauty, free of flaw. 
Thy stiff cold tears of 'sdain that never thaw 

All promise death as choicest recompense 

To me, if I but cling to thee and climb 
Thy giant breasts of frosts, thy flanks of rime, 
Or scale thy treacherous steeps to topmost peaks 

And brave thy avalanche's dreaded flow! 
Then shall I find what all my body seeks, 
A tomb sublime in seas of endless snow! 



DREAM OF ICE. 165 



DREAM OF ICE. 

Oh, wondrous, solemn mystery of Dream! 
Sublime induction of a formless thought — 

How vivid is thy cloud-constructed theme! 
Divine of fancy, and by mind unsought, 
Marvel of color, nameless and untaught, 

Appalling glimpses of a world supreme! 

I saw in sleep, with thrills of proud delight, 
Vistas of algid spheres, and such a view 

As never yet of man had blurred the sight, 
Which none can tell of, or conceive of few, — 
In planets far, through billion leagues of blue, 

A vision of an airless city, white. 

Mammoth cathedrals, higher than the eye 
Could reach; of architecture hybrid, weird, 

Their slender steeples through a freezing sky, 
With grand, stupendous gracefulness upreared. 
Palaces, portals, monuments appeared, 

And endless avenues rolled in and by. . . . 



166 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Titanic domes on massive temples rose, 
Like a young giant virgin's niveous breast, 

Chilling, soul-thrilling in their stern repose, 
As if defying gods, by gods unblest; 
While pillars, columns, worked of plinth and^crest, 

Upheld the mass with firmest strength, rugose. 

And all was ice and all was white; no air, 
No earth, no flame; all frigid, rigid cold! 

An icen labyrinth of grand despair. 
The sad necropolis of a race now old, 
Damned for anterior sinnings manifold, 

By one chill glance of God's avenging stare! 

The trees of solid ice had leaves of snow; 
Huge, pendent icicles from heights unseen 

Twisted in uncouth shapes, while to and fro 
Swung skies of silver frost, steel-color, keen, 
Superbly monotone of phantom gleen, 

Veiling a pallid moon's blear, brumal glow! 

Long lines of statues guarded every street, 

With cloaks of rime, with trailing beards of hail, 

Frigidly gazing, with blank eyes discreet, 
From rough and icy socles, mute and pale, 
Waiting to tell their agonizing tale, 

Waiting some sympathizing face to greet. 



DREAM OF ICE. 167 

And all was still: a silence kin to pain 

And desolate as death, sad, vague, austere, 

Save when the echo of some spirit-strain 

Murmured half-frozen melodies of fear. . . . 
The ghastly moon would pause and disappear 

Through hueless heavens, and would come again. — 

Oh, 'twas a grand and mighty dream of ice! 
A poem of white snows: sublimest, grave, 

Whose very dreariness would souls entice, — 

Souls flusht and sick of terrene heats, who, brave 
Would eagerly renounce our God, and crave 

A tomb in this pale, peerless paradise! 

And I had seen it all; my spirit paced 

Those broad, bleak thoroughfares of gray and white. 
No air had I to breathe; my lungs were braced 

With belts of freezing vapor, fresh and light; 

And, as I wandered on from site to site, 
My thoughts of fire this mortal chill effaced. 

For well do I recall my dream, and see 

The strange, fantastic town of "ice and rime; 

I still discern each palace, porch, and tree 
That reared its splendor in this boreal clime; 
And I remember how, from time to time, 

I strove to cool my maddening love for thee. ... 



1 68 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



SONNET. 

I fain would find the home my sorrows crave, 
A rocky shelter in some chill, still spot: 
Live, cenobite estranged, within a grot — 

Near sombrous firs; where Alpine tempests rave — 

With roots to suck, and hot raindrops to lave 
My thirst; secluded, would I live and rot 
In druggef foul, glad in my chosen lot — 

Though still a boy, to tamper with the grave! 

Learn what I know, know what I learned and sought, 
Plow through the sterile wilderness of thought, 
Muse on the myriad mysteries of old, 

Curse every day and hope 'twill be my last, 

Dream o'er my wishful life, its dreams of gold, 

Dream of Eternity — and of the past! . . . 



SONG. 169 



SONG. 

We gasp, we breathe, and we are torn 
From nothingness, and we are born 
More helpless than a helpless lamb, — 
Life is a sham. 

We live as giddy, brainless boys, 
We only care for fun and noise, 
For sugar, candy and for jam, — 
Life is a sham. 

We go to school, and we are taught 
What teachers by themselves know naught, 
Virgil and Euclid we must cram, — 
Life is a sham. 

Love comes when we escape the teens! 
And casts warm rays on stupid scenes; 
At last we cry, " I love, lam" — 
It is a sham. 

And so we live, yes, you and I, 
Only to suffer and to die, 



170 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Finding that naught is worth a damn, 
And life's a sham. 

When sickness comes and mortal pain, 
We strive to find our faith again. 
Alas! death has no epigram — 
It is a sham. 



SONNET. 171 



SONNET. 

I once could weep when women wept; their tears 
Whether of joy or pain, or love for me, 

Moved all the meekness of my soul; for fears, 
And terrene guiles had spared me; I was free 

And pure of holiest thought, yet young in years. 

My lips breathed freshness and its sympathy. 
The coreless skeleton of Time now leers 

Upon the threshold of my soul. I see 

Callous, indifferent, scenes of blood and crime, 
The poor despair, the wicked upward climb; 

My trusts in love and youth I long have spurned, 

My sinning life-tides slowly Deathward creep, 
But oh! how has my skeptic spirit yearned 
To shed one simple tear when women weep! 



1 72 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



TWO LOVE STORIES. 



The wan moon silvers with pale, sullen sheen 
A rose-wreathed arbor near the sleepy Rhine, 

Which, like a wounded snake of Damascene, 

Trails its dull length through leagues of hops and vine. 

A woman with cold, loveless eyes stands there, 
Spurning, as would the shadows of the shores, 

A gentle boy, with blonde and wind-loved hair, 
Who at her haughty feet his soul outpours. 

She turns her head a cold smile to conceal, 
No pity curves her perfect lips to grace — 

Ah, God! — I hear the ominous click of steel — 
His blood is hot upon her hateful face. 



A bizarre throng of masks shouts loud and long; 

Great rockets seek the stars in fiery foam, 
While quip and jest and laughter, kiss and song, 

Hail the first scintillant carnival of Rome. 



TWO LOVE STORIES. 173 

A woman with superb, love-lustred eyes, 

Alert with passions, negligent of fear, 
Whispers in low, soft tones, without disguise, 

"To-morrow night fail not, sweet cavalier." 

A dark-garbed form darts quickly from the shade; 

Unwarned and rapid falls a mortal blow. 
A pale man clutches a sharp, reeking blade; 

Red drops ooze slowly from her bosom's snow. 



174 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



SONNET. 

I of a fiend the heart had, thou as God 
Good and most lenient, merciful soul-kind, 
Forgave my mutiny and rebel mind; 

Aye! when thy hand could wield the avenging rod, 

When at thy will thou couldst have crushed to sod, 
(Barren and foul of thought like mine, where blind 
I culled the dirt I threw thee, hadst thou pined 

To hurl thy 'sdains upon my cringing nod 

That all avowed!) yet thou wert nobly good, 

As 'neath thy scathing gaze abashed I stood, 

Penitent, pallid by fierce shames, but thou 

Pardoned me all — my heinous sin and more; 
Does not the yielding wood of sandal bough 
Perfume the cruel axe that strikes its core ? 



EYES. 



175 



EYES. 

Serene blue eyes, 
Seraphic, calm and limpid eyes, 
Reflection of a Paradise! 
I gaze within their sapphire depths and think 
How like a bark my love might float or sink, 
If they should will it in such wise; 
And their chaste beauty seems to me, 
Like some great, dreamy, treacherous sea! 

Thoughtful gray eyes, 
Crepuscular, grave, gloomy eyes, 
Pale as the moodless Northern skies! 
I gaze within their cloudy depths and see 
How all my love might wrecked and shattered be, 
If they should will it in such wise; 
Cold and transparent as the ice, 
They feel no passion, know no vice. 

Radiant black eyes, 
Wonderful, scintillant black eyes, 
Love's magnetizing, burning prize! 
I gaze within their flashing depths and find 



176 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

The dainty, languid temptress of my mind, 
If they should will it in such wise; 
But their effulgence murmureth 
Of strange, mad passions, bringing death! 

Winsome brown eyes, 
Light, laughing, innocent brown eyes, 
Wherein a woodland idyl lies! 
I gaze within their lucid depths and mark 
The light that from my soul may chase the dark, 
If they should will it in such wise; 
The soul of some Greek dryad fair 
Has surely found its Eden there! 

Sombre green eyes, 
Strange, haunting, mystic, siren eyes, 
Teeming with promise and surprise! 
I gaze within their misty depths and see 
The eyes of Messalina dark on me, 

Whene'er they will it in such wise; 
Snake-like, intolerant and warm, 
They seem to hiss with passion's storm! 

Colorful eyes, 
Weird, variable, wonder eyes, 
Wherein a shadowy rainbow flies! 
I gaze within their dazzling depths and love 



EYES. 

The sacred mutability thereof, 

And they have willed it in such wise; 
Ah, emblems of my soul divine, 
Only in dreams I see them shine! 

N 



177 



178 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



SONNET. 

From out the deep dark glooms of doubt and pain, 
Thy love's star-radiance, nascent, soon shall shine, 

Splendent of carnal glamour from thy brain 
Like precious stones behued in tints divine, 

That hide in dazzling depths a soul long lain, 

A spirit crystallized, infused, benign! 
The gem ignores its soul's deep glowing vein, 

Thy soul ignores the gem-love that is thine! 

But Ijhave come to fray the path to spheres 
Whose secret thrills, whose dizzy height endears, 
For I will revel in their glorious gloom, 

Born to enjoy the wonders of thine eyes — 
The riot splendors of their vague perfume, 

Thy soft and amorous symphonies of sighs ! 



JTZSSES. 



179 



KISSES. 

There's a kiss of Nature charming, 
The fond mother's kiss to her child. 

The babe's fancied fears disarming, 
By the touch of her lips, so mild 

That visions of sleep, alarming, 
Fade fast from its mind beguiled. 

A kiss that ignoreth reason, 
Is the kissing of roused desire. 

'Tis blind to a future treason, 

And does naught of the past inquire: 

For the spice of lust in season 

Has the heat and the strength of fire. 

There's a kiss of noble pleasure — 
The lover's kiss to his bride. 

An embrace that hearts can treasure 
With feelings of joy and of pride; 

Till later, those hearts can measure 
The full flood of the marriage tide. 



180 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

There's a kiss as warm and winning 

To the sense as golden wine; 
'Tis the kiss of love beginning, 

For whose magic, lips pout and pine; 
God pardons the bliss of sinning, 

For its essence is right divine. 

There's a kiss — the kiss of parting; 

An unwelcome, sad embrace, 
When unchecked tears are darting 

O'er a pallid, anxious face, 
As the moment nears for starting 

O'er treacherous seas and worlds of space. 

There's a kiss of anguish, horrid, 

When Death comes to claim its prey; 

When blanched are cheeks once florid, 
When mourners kneel round and pray; 

That kiss on a chilly forehead, 
When a loved life ebbs away. 



LANGUAGE. 181 



LANGUAGE. 

There is a language I have heard in dreams 
Whispered by formless clouds, by ouph and gnome, 
Sound that like water breaking into foam 

With sad unearthly song and music teems; 

An idiom unctuous like oil in streams, 

Full of grand mellow words like "star," like "Rome! 1 

Such as cannot in any cobwebbed tome 
Of antique lore be found; whose carol quemes, 

Subtle of strain like rich sonorous Zend 

Full of strange syllables that have no end 

A tongue wherein low liquid echoes swell 

Of worlds unknown; which mortals cannot speak 

Something like velvet crushed upon a bell 

Something like amorous sighs, or murmured Greek! 



182 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



PUNISHMENT. 

The spirit of Darkness, when this shapeless sphere, 
Sped through vast spaces, barren, cold and lightless, 
Proud of its empire over chaos sightless, 

Cried unto God, "Thy power I do not fear! 

"No will of thine can my black glory mar, 
I shall exist supreme above and under! " 
And as it spake the heavens were rent asunder, 

While high in luminous air there dawned a star! 



ROME. 183 



ROME. 

Ruin and rot their raging rule have rolled 
Rebellions, o'er the glories of thy dead! 
Recall not regal dreams of carnage red, 

Revels and triumphs, routs and robes of gold, 

Revert no vain regret on splendors fled; 

Rude, rushing time, with rigid, ruthless cold, 
Ravishing, reckless, rusts thy royal head; 

Ravages sanctuaries once rose-souled. 

Rest! in the rank recesses of each dome 
Rest! oh grand town revered, a spirit-home 

Ready wilt find when worlds have passed away, 

Regions of air and odorous realms of sky. 
Restored in spheres of everlasting day, 

Rome thou shalt never know what 'tis to die! 



184 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



BY MOONLIGHT. 

Through flowers and fern she hurries to the tryst, 
Love words in softest Tuscan, murmured low, 

Pour through the coral of her lips unkissed — 
Our pent up passions with the same soul glow! 

While on the road, before all passers' eyes, 
A rival in love, my master in all art, 

Tito Costanza bleeds and prays and dies, 
My keen stiletto in his hateful heart. 



LA GRISETTE. 185 



LA GRISETTE. 

All smiles and blushes, loving, arch and gay, 

Delicious little vixen, merry sprite, 

She toils to feed her birds the whole long night, 
Or save her bracelets from the pawnshop's prey. 

The woods of Meudon find her every May, 
With dainty gaiter and saucy bonnet white; 
She falls in rapture with each favorite site, 

Adores de Kock, and doats upon Musset. 

Constant and true to lover, dark or blonde, 
His hardships, pains and joys she gayly shares, 
Contented with the garret where he dwells, 
Never complaining, although madly fond 
(After sweet kisses and Beranger's airs) 
Of pet canaries and fresh caramels. 



1 86 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



TO NAPOLEON. 

AFTER READING MADE. DE REMUSAT'S MEMOIRS. 

All carping fools that dream they have grown wise, 
Molest thy memory by a puny sneer, 
Snake-like, at last, their noisome heads they rear, 

And on thy splendor look with jaundiced eyes. 

They call thee tyrant in a thousand cries, 
While every deed of thine evokes their fear; 
While bowing before thee, wonder of this sphere, 

And trembling at a name that never dies. 

Ah, let them in their coward stupor prate, 

And all the ignorance of their mindlets show, 
Unconscious how contemptible they are, 
For worlds unborn will claim thy fame as great, 
Supreme, unsullied of all minds we know, 
Crowned by the glory of thy battle-star! 



SMALL MINDS. 187 



SMALL MINDS. 



Iln'y a que les petits espriis qui constatent les imperfections des chefs d'ozuvre. 

— Voltaire. 



When will the names of great men rest in peace, 
And be revered as they deserve on earth ? 

When will the mongrel horde of cavilers cease 
To soil their memory and denounce their worth ? 

Will the Greek symmetry of their perfect thought 
Be ever ravaged by the modern Huns ? 

Can naught restrain these lesser beings, fraught 
With bitter hatred for dead, mighty ones ? 

Shall impotent, gall-fed critics, balked of fame, 
In envious wrath lay down Neronian law? 

And turn to ridicule some soaring name 

That shows a brilliant diamond's lightest flaw ? 

An easy task, forsooth! Delicious themes, 
To scoff at what is grand and pure and far, 

But to my eyes their mad persistence seems 
Like some pale fire-fly jealous of a star. 



1 88 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

And when I see these pompous idiots strut, 
And note the paltry mischief they have done, 

I smile and think of some foul Lapland hut 
That might be envious of a Parthenon! 



SONNET. s 189 



SONNET. 

Deep in the claustral glooms of pillared aisles 
I wandered to tempt calm: Toledo slept. 

Its grand cathedral, lit by pearl-pale smiles — 

From stars, — mused with the night, while o'er it crept 

Gray waves of shadows, as I hushed my guiles 
And, at the virgin's altar knelt, and wept: — 

Wept o'er my deep wild thoughts, o'er wishful wiles, 
O'er sins that mocked my strength, o'er sins that slept. 

For hours strove I to still the brutal yearn 
That urged me to betray thy youth, and spurn 
Thy love immaculate for fleshy pain, 

But even at the shrine of martyred Christ 
The flowers of vice within me bloomed again, — 
Hell was my God — and Hell thy soul enticed. . . . 



T9 o DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



TO ANNA SALTUS. 

Thou shouldst not, Christian lady, bend to grief, 
And blame this heartless world for ills of thine; 
Thou knowest well that brilliant suns do shine 

Behind this life's dark cloud: — they bring relief 

And pitying rays for all thy sighs, that pine 
And long lament; thou prov'st it by belief 

In God's omnipotence and love divine, 

Knowing that earthly cares below are brief. . . . 

God loves thy past, and gives thee grace to bear 
The pains and anguish of the world's sad cold, 

To few proves He thy proud heart strong and rare, 
To few thy virtues does His might unfold, 

But still He gives thee grand and generous share, 
Thy smile like sunbeams! and thy love like gold. 



THE DYING STAR. 



191 



THE DYING STAR. 

From the Russian of Zenaiditch. 

When light first gleamed upon this sphere, 

Ages ago, my form was born; 
But fate says I must disappear: 

To-night from heaven I shall be torn. 

My luminous life, so pure and free, 
Must pass to nebulous disgrace; 

While far above I now can see 

The star ordained to take my place. 

No hatreds in my soul prevail; 

I do not e'en regret my light; 
But I regret the poet pale. 

Who watched me lovingly each night. 

He knew not that my silvery beams 

Could all his revery inspire, 
Nor how I caused his wandering dreams 

To glow with a poetic fire. 



192 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

He will not know that I am dead, 

Lost in eternity and time; 
And, to another in my stead, 

He will pour forth his songs sublime. 

Oh, sister star! if you, too, love, 
How you will suffer in the sky; 

For I have seen him live, above, 

While you are doomed to see him die. 



THE NORTH SEA MAID. 193 



THE NORTH SEA MAID. 

A Boreal moon pours beam on silver beam, 
Far on the northern fiords all still and cold, 
The rime-tipped pines on snow-encrusted wold 

Stand up like sentinels on"mere and^stream; 

While over Norseland, with vague eyes of gold, 
The freezing stars gaze solemnly and dream — 
White dreams of frost, pale, chilly dreams that teem 

With memories of bleak icebergs southward rolled. 

Within a cot, a distaff by her side, 

A maiden watches the sad, hueless skies! 

Long flaxen hair, knotted in tresses wide, 

Is tinged by moonbeams as they fall and rise, 

While all their cold-hued'pearliness has dyed 
Clear sparks of silver in her icy eyes. 



194 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



GOOD FRIDAY. 



•' He was despised and rejected of men." 

— Isaiah xliii. 3. 



Look back, my soul, amazed and see 

The Man of Sorrows 'midst a crowd, 
Bearing his cross to Calvary, 

Assailed by imprecations loud. 
Patient and meek, with eyes upturned, 

He sought forgiveness from above, 
For those who prayers and pity spurned, 

Regardless of his pardoning love. 

The Son of God was crucified, 

His blood for man's salvation paid, 
While Jews reviled the precious tide 

And mocked the King, a cross displayed. 
O guilt beyond most daring thought 

Their impious fathers ever framed; 
Which on their race the curse has brought 

Of unbelief still madly claimed. 

"Why has my God forsaken me?" 
Death shadowed, the Savior cried; 



GOOD FRIDA Y. 195 

Rocks rent in answering agony, 

And trembling earth in groans replied. 

The heavenly host in mute surprise 
Watch the stupendous mystery; 

No joyous sounds in Paradise, 
And Christ invoking sympathy. 

Weighed down by sin's o'erwhelming load, 

The spotless Lamb for sinners dies; 
An offering worthy of a God, 

The incarnate Lord, the sacrifice. 
Still on this day of bitter grief, 

When shame should veil each guilty face, 
Faith offers all a sure relief 

From Love's true source, Redeeming Grace. 

Darkness Judea's hills o'erspread, 

The tears of angels Jesus laved, 
Long buried saints rose from the dead, 

The veil is rent, the church is saved! 
The cross, the nails, the thorns, the spear, 

The scorn, the torture and despair, 
Will at the last great day appear 

The crown and sceptre Christ will wear. 

Oh, bleeding Lamb! by thy last cry 
Still heard in faith from pole to pole, 



196 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Raise me from where in grief I lie, 
And make my wounded spirit whole. 

In the deep ocean of thy love 
Blot out my sins till, soaring free, 

My soul will magnify above 

The risen Christ who died for me. 



THE GNOME. 



THE GNOME. 



197 



I am a little bearded gnome; 
Deep in the underworld I roam, 
A mighty cavern is my home. 

I find my way on wintry nights 
With my companions, by the lights 
Of glorious, glittering stalactites. 

We live on dainty herbs and roots, 
Honey we steal from men, and fruits 
And nuts we take from owls and newts. 

We sip the dew from sleepy flowers, 
In the serene, calm midnight hours, 
And drain the grape-juice from the bowers. 

Then spry and noiseless, we return 

To our mysterious sojourn, 

To see our jewels glow and burn. 

For we have diamonds in huge piles, 
White pearls from oceanic isles, 
And golden coin that covers miles. 



198 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

The fortunes that our fathers took, 
Are hidden in our treasure-nook, 
And on their brilliancy we look. 

When the bright moon points down its lance 
Of silver on the woods in trance, 
We hurry to the dell to dance. 

Over the mushrooms nestling there, 
We play at leap-frog till the air 
Rosy with dawn, becometh fair. 

At hide-and-seek amid the fern, 

We laughing pause and laughing turn, 

While over us the pale stars burn. 

And if we meet the dreaded toad, 
We slay the monster on the road, 
And drag him down to our abode. 

We love on silent eves to sail 
Upon the water-lilies pale, 
Down on the lakelet in the vale, 

And see the lustrous moon on high, 
Flooding with light the dreamy sky, 
Guarding us with her silver eye. 



THE GNOME. 

But we are happiest when we see 
Some maiden sleeping 'neath a tree 
Wrapped in delicious reverie. 

For then we know she cannot pray, 
And so we seize her in dismay, 
And steal her deathless soul away! 



199 



200 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



FANTASY. 

Through the blue and diaphanous sky, 
I*once saw a white cloud drifting by, 

In rare flocculent purity; 
Like some angel's immaculate plume, 
All unconscious of tempest and gloom, 

Or the wide night's obscurity. 

As I watched the calm, delicate grace, 
Of this beautiful pilgrim of space, 

As I sat mute and pondering; 
My soul envied its power to be free, 
And the marvelous sites it would see 

In strange, distant lands wandering. 

Gently urged, murmured I, by the breeze, 
It will cross green expanses of seas, 

This frail substance etherial; 
And will see below soft Spanish stars, 
The grand bastions of white Alcazars, 

And Alhambras imperial! 

It will steal o'er the drear Apennines, 
Through its mist of magnificent pines, 
Where the tower of Ferrara gleams, 



FANTASY. 

And will watch the grim glaciers lean, 
Where the snow on some Alpine ravine 
Like the dust of Carrara gleams. 

Where Stromboli burns red to the night, 
It will pass in the zigzag of flight, 

Shunning hurricanes pluvius, 
And will float ever higher and higher, 
Colored crimson and gold by the fire 

Of the fretful Vesuvius. 

It will pass over Rome the Sublime, 
And will see the mad Carnival-time, 

When the crowded throngs merry go, 
And beyond, upon summerful lands, 
It will smile on the rose-reeking strands 

Of fair Zante and Cerigo. 

By the swift-winged and briny winds borne, 
It will poise o'er the great Golden-Horn 

Where the heavens all starry shine, 
And will view in the scintillant light 
Of the rising sun, splendid and bright, 

The vast domes of Scutari shine. 

Where the Parthenon's marble at night, 
Like the ghost of dead Beauty lies white, 
It will linger to gaze on it, 



DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

And from thence it may wander awhile 
By the banks of the lotus-girt Nile 

When the moon pours her rays on it. 

Still propelled by the indolent gales, 
It will roam over Indian vales, 

And inhale the rare flowers of them; 
Or, supremely exultant, will soar 
Over Delhi! Benares! Lahore! 

And the glittering towers of them! 

It will fly past the blue Hoang-Ho, 
That thro' cities of bamboo doth flow 

When the full moon falls bright on it; 
And its nebulous spirit would love 
To be changed by the gods to a dove 

And in rapture alight on it. 

Thus I mused on this fair summer day, 
As the cloud slowly drifted away 

To the lands I had dreamed about; 
But alas! when I looked up I saw 
With a pang of unspeakable awe, 

Livid lightnings that gleamed about! 

All the brilliant sky's azure intense, 
Had grown turbulent, angry and dense, 

While the rough winds blew plunderful, 



FANTASY. 

And the white and the beautiful cloud, 
Formed a part of the tenebrous shroud, 
Of the grim tempest thunderful. 

Like to this is the musing supreme 
Of the poet who only can dream 

Of serene Ideality; 
Who awakes from fair visions of grace, 
To see thrust in his innocent face, 

All the world's cold reality! 



203 



204 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



THINE EYES. 

I love thine eyes that beckon smiles; two souls 
Radiant with lustres flashing forth grand fires! 
Their opulence of glamour goads desires; 

Should sad words murmur, then their glance condoles. 

A harmony of tears, heart's manna, rolls 
Down cheeks disrosed, until a lip inquires 
Grief's secrets; then the first woe-ebb retires 

In tranquil tides, alone, the gaze consoles. 

A smile! reflection of the soul's bright sun, 
Chases all chimeras of pain; I shun 

Dark grooves of palsied thought, becharmed, I look 

And rivet all mine essence in thine eyes, 
Vague as the music of a moonbathed brook, 
Vague as great sultry clouds, as twilight skies! 



TO MARIE B . 205 



TO MARIE B- 



Whene'er I look into thy beauteous eyes, 
Twin stars of delicate and peerless blue, 
Soft as twin violets shimmering in the dew, 

My spirit trembles in a charmed surprise. 

Visions of angels, seen in dreams arise 

Whene'er thou greetest my delighted view. 

And thy sweet smile, for which a saint would sue, 

Can only find its peer in Paradise. 

So when with rapturous eyes I gaze on thee, 
Thy image shows me all that Heaven will be. 



2o6 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



NEBULOSA. 

She who so madly loved the falling rain, 

From clouds storm-shattered, and the sable gloom 

Of nights tempestuous, has for long years lain 
With my lost hope and passion in the tomb; 

But her etherial spirit in content, 

Now soars unfettered in its element. 

When by the sea the twilight sadly wanes, 
And when the gathering gray autumnal mist 

Covers still beaches, and broad, barren plains 
With hazy, vaporous films of amethyst; 

A figure that I indistinctly see 

Through its vague depths, continually follows me. 

It passes near me on long winter eves, 

When the soft snow, blurring the road from view, 
Descends in crystal flakes upon the leaves, 

Keeping some strange and ghostly rendezvous. 
I feel a phantom presence as it flies 
Reluctantly through dull and sullen skies. 



NEBULOSA. 207 

When nights are starred, or in the splendent sheen 

Of summer suns, I wait for it in vain; 
But over me I can perceive it lean 

In the swift, tenebrous torrents of the rain, 
And with warm, dripping arms, in formless grace, 
It clings to me in a supreme embrace. 

Her soul, imperishable for all time, 

Thus forms of all that falls from heaven a part, 
And through the years, intangible, sublime, 

Will keep fond memory vivid in my heart. 

And that is why I love to wander so 

In this mist-haunted land, and seek again 

Her kisses wafted to me in the snow, 
Her tears that fall upon me in the rain! 



2o8 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



FLOWERS OF THE HAREM. 

KONDJE-GUL. 

Oh, fairest flowret of my love's parterre, 

Kondj£, thy silken brows are ebon crescents; 
I love the dreamy languorous quiescence, 
Born of tired passion and voluptuous care, 
That dawns upon thy breast, as white and pure, 
As proud arched lilies of the Dumanhour, 
Bathed in the moonlight's essence. 

ZOUHRA. 

The soulful bulbul prisoned in thy breast 

Draws my dream toward thee with divinest singing. 
Why should I gifts of pearls to pearl be bringing? 

Unfold the necklace of thine arms, my blest, 

And lull me with the spices of thy skin, 

While perfumed shapes of attar, vague and thin, 
Are softly o'er us winging. 

HADIDJE. 

Oh, lissome and Albanian beauty mine, 

Thou art the river where my parched caresses 
Seek 'mid the wavy grasses of thy tresses 



FLOWERS OF THE HAREM. 209 

Refreshing waters, limpid and divine. 
Ah, sing away upon thy low Kinoor, 
The jealous doubt I strive to not endure, 
That mocks me and oppresses. 

NAZLI. 

Nazli, my lithe and agile-footed deer, 

Why, when I warned thee, didst thou not obey me? 

How for a Christian dog couldst thou betray me ? 
Nazli, my idle Kandjar thirsts, I fear — 
Shrink not: — I do but need thy star-pale head. 
Beside thy bleeding body on my bed, 

This sweet night I will lay me! 
p 



2io DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



EFFET DE NEIGE. 

Sad silent flakes of snow on lakes 

Descend. 
There is of white inblent with might 

No end. 

One desert sheet of ice and sleet 

Is seen; 
A frozen pond; a moor beyond 

Once green. 

A road of ruts, two wooden huts, 

A mill; 
Beyond the meers, thro' darkness, peers 

A hill. 

The dorf bells boom, thro' ashy gloom 

The time, 
O'er still abodes, o'er dreary roads 

Of rime. 

No moon, no star; the dawn is far; 
All sleep, 



EFFET DE NEIGE. 

Save mental pain and grief again 
That weep. 

The grays of shade meet grays of glade, 

All's dark; 
Of watch-dogs near, I trembling hear 

The bark. 

Out from the town the road adown 

There lies, 
A form that lags in scanty rags 

And dies. 

The flakes still fall and cover all 

White, white — 
No aid is by, unpitying sky 

Is Night! 

Down upon brooks, on forest nooks, 

On glens; 
Down on the mounds and freezing grounds 

On fens. 

Falleth the snow, persistent, slow 

And sad; 
Naught to keep warm that helpless form, 

Grief-mad! 



DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Footprints still show thro' banks of snow 

His tread; 
Long did he wait, we are too late, 

He's dead. 

See the flakes fall down upon all 

So slow; 
See the flakes crowd forming his shroud 

Of snow. 



SOUVENIR. 213 



SOUVENIR. 

The forest flutters with a breath of May, 

The sun slants softly through a mist of greens; 
Upon my arm a gentle beauty leans, 

Thro' labyrinths of greener leaves we stray. 

Like the sweet Spring, we too, are fresh and gay, 
And envy not the lot of kings or queens; 
To veil our love no pale care intervenes, 

There is no night to our loves' perfect day. 

We walk and dream, and dream again, and see 
The brown birds watching us in mute surprise; 
Languid, we feel blue scraps of mellow skies 

Blend with our sense in silent harmony; 

And I, loved, loving, see upturned to me 

The luring splendor of two lustrous eyes. . . . 



214 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



ATTAR GUL. 

In the splendor of the harem, 
From Janina's market brought, 

Lies a beautiful Circassian, 

By an unknown master bought. 

She is dreaming of her Seignior, 
And she fears he may be old, 

Some visier bowed down and wrinkled, 
Who will tempt her with his gold. 

And she trembles at each footstep 
Her quick ear detects without, 

While her lily cheeks turn crimson, 
And her mind is dark with doubt! 

On divans of Alep satin, 

By four stalwart Nubians fanned, 
Leila counts her costly presents, 

And the rings that grace her hand. 

There are fredges deftly woven, 
Red tarboushes sprent with pearls, 



ATTAR GUL. 

Gems and essence, spice and izars, 
And great brilliants for her curls, 

Sweetest flowers in rich profusion, 
Foreign birds and luscious fruits, 

While a host of slaves before her, 
Thrum their soft, voluptuous lutes! 

Her bright nails are pink with henneh, 
She has tipped with k'hol each lash; 

For they tell her he is coming, 
And her eyes expectant flash! 

"Ah!" she cries, "he must be beauteous, 
His young years are in their bloom, 

For I smell delicious attar, 
'Tis like mine his loved perfume! 

"There lurks magic in its fragrance, 
Where the souls of roses rest, 

And the mortal that adores it 
By Mohammed's love is blest! " 

Then the satin curtains open — 

And she gazes in surprise 
On her sire, who stands before her, 

With admiring, starry eyes! 



215 



216 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

The unknown and dreaded master, 
Fair of form and fair of face, 

Is the mighty Sultan Ahmed, 
The anointed of his race! . . . 

¥c * * « * 

In the splendor of the harem 
From Janina's market brought, 

Lies a beautiful Circassian, 

By a worshiped master bought! 



NAPOLEON'S GIFT. 217 



NAPOLEON'S GIFT. 

One summer night, descending through the air, 

A host of friendly fairies swiftly crept 
From argent clouds and moonbeams, unto where 

The child Napoleon in his cradle slept. 

They gazed upon the infant's brow serene, 

Bathed in soft light, unconscious, calm "and grave, 

Kissed the closed eyes that yet no pain had seen, 
And smiling at his grace, their presents gave. 

The first, who read the future's secrets, kneeled, 
And in a murmurous tone, thus briefly spake: 

"I give thee Valor in the camp and field, 

Prime of those gifts which gods and heroes make! " 

The second said: "By every fairy vow, 

I, with kind thoughts intent, and love for thee, 

Thy budding youth and manhood do endow 
With wondrous Beauty, such as few may see! " 

The third approached: "Thou shalt no rival know, 
Unto the sword my sister gave, the Pen 



218 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

I add, and for this transient life below, 
I give thee Wisdom, above many men! " 

"And I," with winning voice thus spake the fourth, 
"Bequeath to thee of years an envied length, 

And in thy mind and body, calm or wroth, 

I give thee powerful Will, enduring Strength!" 

The dawn was breaking, and the sylph-like host, 
Smoothed its white wings to seek the way it came, 

When, like a pale and sin-unhallowed ghost, 
An uninvited fairy called her name! 

" I, too, have gifts," she hissed, and touched the child, 
"A rich, rare gift, and for its sake I come, 

For on the brows that ye leave undefiled, 
I place the awful crown of Martyrdom! " 



UNFA VORED. 



219 



UNFAVORED. 

A humble roadside flower in bloom 
Enjoys its transient summer days; 

The night winds spare its suave perfume, 
And soft suns woo it with their rays: 

It lives but for a time, yet praise 
Is lavished on it, and by whom ? 

By one who in his wrathful hours, 

Counted my life less than a flower's! 

The star whose silver tints the night, 
Is blessed with joys beyond our ken; 

It sheds its soulful, placid light 
Upon the devious paths of men; 

It is its duty to be bright, 
And shine on snow, on mire or fen; — 

Yet God who made it in his pride 

Abandons me without a guide! 

The bird that sings in yonder nest, 
Has gifts most gracious to it given; 

The gift of song, that warms the breast, 
Song, which must be a part of Heaven! 



DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Tell me, my spirit, art thou blesst 

With kindness such, though thou hast striven, 
Did He, Creator, condescend 
To be to me a God, a friend ? 

No, no, I linger in the dark, 

Gnawed by great grief and cruel pain, 
I am a shattered, sea-tossed bark 

Dashed into wreck on Life's rough main; 
To save or soothe no holy spark 

Can show me now a haven again! 
Oh God, why count me in thy power, 
Less than thy bird, thy star, thy flower? 



YELLO W. 



YELLOW. 

A northern sun tinged with sallow light, 

A sea that swoons on leagues of citron sand; 
While in the dreamy background grimly stand 

Groves of weird willows sered by autumn's blight. 

The sky in strawy strips is covered quite 

By indolent clouds which nonchalantly fanned 
By drowsier winds, blend on the aureate land 

With stacks of wheat, ungarnered, dry and bright. 

A golden dusk serenely falls and fades 

As if it shrank to love the sere earth more; 
Sky, clouds and leaves fuse in one color rare, 
While by the sad waves, flecked with fluctuant shades 
A blonde girl watches the mad sea-gulls soar, 
With scraps of sunlight in her wind-loved hair. 



DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



THE MONKEY. 

In fiendish malice, wickedness and mirth, 

Thou art indeed like man, great minds declare, 
Thy wild, ferocious instinct will not spare, 

A mutual fiend is in us all from birth. 

Thy leer perpetual finds no thing of worth, 
Mischief unto thy heart is ever rare, 
With ceaseless jabbering thou dost soil the air, 

Thou turbulent Eulenspiegel of the earth! 

Yes, thou canst laugh at man, and at thine ease, 
for he has worshiped* thee, and doth adore 
Unto this day thy unknown, hidden powers. 
Yea! where amid a world of balmy trees, 
Clad in the glory of a thousand towers, 
The Indian sun showers fire upon Lahore. 

•Monkey Temples of India, (Benares). 



MOODS OF MADNESS. 223 



MOODS OF MADNESS. 



WORDS. 



In city slums, haggling o'er filthy gold 

And desperate, livid at the cards each day, 
And though I suffer agony untold, 

No loving hand can ever lure me away. 
In insolent debauch, when mad with wine, 

I press some lewd, roughed courtesan to my breast, 
No friendly word, no mother thought divine, 

Has ever the vice within my veins suppressed. 
And when in drunken stupor, with wild eyes, 

My soul spells murder in its sombre alarms, 
No melody moves its darkness to surprise, 

And worshiped Schubert has no longer charms. 
Indifferent, callous to all fate, disgraced 

Lacking alone the hemp about my neck, 
I yawn thro' life degraded and debased, 

A parody on man, a mental wreck. 
Each night I make forced marches to the grave; 

To soothe me naught has faculty or art, 
And even sweet prayer alas, would fail to save 

My gangrened soul and my vindictive heart. 



224 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

But sometimes in great orgies of despair, 

I chance to hear strange sympathetic words, 
That hold the power to mitigate my care, 

And lull me like the summer songs of birds, — 
Words that allure and fascinate my sense, 

That rise and soar like some Byzantine dome, 
Sonorous, liquid, superb, immense; 

Words like " Jehovah," " Calm," "Aurora," " Rome." 
And wKen God wills that these rare sounds should fall 

Like saintly benedictions on my ear, 
I shout like warriors at the trumpet's call; 

My wine-clogged brain expands, mine eyes grow^clear. 
Hurling my glass away with passionate hate, 

I curse the laughing harlot at my side, 
Some subtile influence supremely great, 

Reasons to me my manliness and pride. 
Then with calm brows, in infinite delight 

I rise and seek my long deserted home, 
Murmuring in rapture to the listening night, 

Words like " Jehovah," " Calm," " Aurora," " Rome." 



BAMBOO. 225 



BAMBOO. 



CHINOISERIE. 



In the shade of the yellow bamboo, 
Lies Cathay's pretty Princess, Hwci-Su, 

Who with hope for her bridal prays, 
While a slave to await her demands, 
Standeth near with a sword in his hands, 

And to some painted idol prays. 

Her red lip is a coralline dream, 
A pure ruby concealing a gleam 

Of wee teeth that shine fresh on it; 
While her smile, like a rose on the bud, 
Lights its purple, patrician proud blood, 

And the delicate flesh on it. 

There are songs of ennui in her eyes, 
And sweet perfumes of tea in her sighs, 

And she longs for the moon to come; 
While her sandal fan feathered, is pressed 
On the fluctuant pulse of her breast, 

As she waits for sleep soon to come. 
Q 



226 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

In a languorous, indolent spell, 
She sits chewing the luscious bet€l, 

And she dreams of her Mandarin; 
Of his forests in distant Soutchou, 
Of its mazes of fern and bamboo, 

That with him she would wander in. 

And she dreams of his Kaolin towers, 

Of his fountains, his Kiosks and his bowers, 

And his birds, and the songs of them; 
While near by, on the Hoang-Ho's blue waves, 
She can hear the soft reeds of her slaves, 

And the turbulent gongs of them. 

From the intricate depths of the glade, 
From the leaves and encompassing shade, 

She has heard a sound dear to her; 
All the languor has fled from her eyes, 
And she waits like a bird in surprise, 

Knowing well who is near to her. 

Her poor feet are too tiny to walk, 
And she dare not the Emperor balk 

By admitting a stranger near; 
But she can, to the love of her choice 
Lend a signal in amorous voice, 

And can warn him of danger near. 



BAMBOO. 227 

Of a sudden the shadow of night, 

Is cleft through with a great gleam of light, 

While hot blood wets the feet of her; 
And from mazes of tangled bamboo, 
Darts her wooer from distant Soutchou, 

To speak love and entreat of her. 
******** 

In the shade of the yellow bamboo, 
Lies Cathay's fairest Princess, Hw&-Su, 

And she still for her bridal prays. . . . 
But the slave who obeyed her demands, 
Stands no longer with sword in his hands, 

And she now to the idol prays. . . . 



228 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



TO A SPIDER. 

Quaint, agile thing, weird Caliban of my wall, 
Thou must the marvelous miniature really be 

Of mythical dragons fashioned to appal, 
Who residence held in some forgotten sea! 

Or yet, a more sacred, though irrelevant thing, 

Once worshiped as God where now the Tudas flows; 

Thou wert of Giva's body-hues the king; 
Or p'raps the blushing chastity of a rose. 

I watch thee weave thy sinuous, flocculent web, 
Around the trunks of immemorial trees; 

And often I have seen thy scintillant tissues ebb 
Vague tides of silk round unoffensive fleas. 

Then, all thy feculent majesty recalls 

The nauseous mustiness of forsaken bowers, 

The leprous nudity of deserted halls — 
The positive nastiness of sullied flowers. 

And as I mark the colors yellow and black 
That fresco thy lithe, dictatorial thighs, 

I dream and wander on my drunken back, 
How God could possibly have created flies! 



HEINRICH HEINE. 



229 



HEINRICH HEINE. 

Genius and suffering made thee sacred twice, 
Great, angel-hearted dreamer: needless fears 
Of love unanswered curved thy smile of sneers, 
And froze thy warm young veins with cynic ice, 
Poet of piety bound in gyves of vice. 
Thy sharp faun-laugh failed to disguise thy tears, 
When thy kind vigilant muse that all endears, 
Strove from thy soul vague mysteries to entice. 
Poor child of song thou couldst not find the day 
Amid Life's chaos of doubt, of dream and night, 
Nor kneel before Art's altar everywhere — 
Doomed from all promise to be thrust away. 
Nobly thou didst suspend thy spirit light 
Above the gloomy abysses of despair: 
When the grim fiends of Pain began to shout, 
And rend thy outraged, lacerated breast, 
Martyr, thy keen wit lashed with pitiless zest, 
The gods and things thy lips once round about, 
Naught was held holy to thee where this drought 
Had parched thy blood and burned it to unrest, 
Thy gall fell fast on the accurst and blessed. 
But Love alone was never soiled by doubt: 



230 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

And the mute, marveling world ere thou didst go, 
Saw thy grand agony, and cried: "Behold! 
Can this dull Death a dissolution be ?" 
Nor thy mind's twilight had the brilliant glow, 
The splendor and the glamour and the gold 
Of an aurora rising from the sea. 



THE JAPANESE FAN. 231 



THE JAPANESE FAN. 

Cunningly fashioned by an artist's hand, 
My frail, light stem of delicate bamboo, 
Upholds a spray of dazzling plumes, whose hue 

Is rivaled by no bird on Yeddo's strand! 

Upon my sandal ribs, when I expand, 

The daintiest arabesques enchant the view! 
Ruby pagodas, mandarins robed in blue, 

Intricate curves and virgin faces bland. 

My beauty made to serve and to delight 

Some splendid Taicoon's grand imperial ease, 
When Occidental winds blow fierce and hot, 
Is doomed, alas, to fan, night after night, 
In some dark, dismal town beyond the seas, 
The rough and musky cheeks of a cocotte! 



232 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 



AN ANSWER. 

A studio — a smouldering fire — shelves of books — dead light 
— a table covered with volumes, manuscripts, chemical in- 
struments, etc. 

A Student. 

Oh wondrous mystery of Art and Lore, 

I shrink beneath your mightiness, in pain 
Of mental sweets: while all I still ignore, 

Vast worlds of subtle thought that flee my brain, 
Deride with virgin stubbornness, a soul 

O'erflusht with science: while a frenzied ken 
Chafes to attain a thinker's cherished goal, 

And learn all things unknown to other men. . . 

I strive and toil in vain, eye-worn and sick 

Of shadowy prose veiling an occult theme. 
I long to feel a genial blood flow thick 

Through all my thought-cowed body, in a stream 
Of roused and virile joyfulness, to purge 

A torpid maze of thinkings: but alas! 
I lack a will such buoyancy to urge — 

Much had I better count the hours that pass. 



AN ANSWER. 233 

An arid pleasure find I, when the sound, 

Nervous, recurrent, of my clock I hear — 
When link by link, the chain of hours unwound 

Clings with its rhythmed sameness on my ear. 
The solemn warner oft unthanked, relieves 

Oppressing silence; harbinger of woe, 
And cheers a mind, which anguish- stricken grieves, 

Boiling to speed its never hast'ning flow. 

What in huge dusty volumes have I learnt 

To draw the color to my palsied cheek ? 
To ease my aches of heart, cark-stifled, burnt 

By furious gloat for fame, by musings weak? 
What in the vaguenesses of Copt or Zend 

Have I solved, that unriddled could beguile 
Or please my fancy, when the brutal end 

Brought but the pleasure of a skeptic smile ? 
" Nebulous secrets of old Arab skill, 

Runes of the Northern clime so oddly formed, 
Maxims and legend-flowers culled from Motril, 

When on the Spanish coast the Moslem swarmed — 
Marvels and glories of the Eastern lands, 

Tales of chill Ukraine's steppes in mystic sense, 
Echoes of Khiva's turrets, Egypt's sands, 

Have ye e'er caused me such a joy immense 
As when I watched the blonden moonbeams play 

In lustrous streams of light upon the sea, 



234 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Blending their argent shadows with the spray, 

Cresting the rugged cliffs in watery glee?" 
But now e'en that joy sickens: Nature's charms 

Cannot allure by planets or by flowers, 
Withered by all the world's deceitful harms, 

Spurn I a faith in God's assuaging powers. 
Stolid and worn, in studies rapt, I dreamt 

A surcease of pale chagrin I could find, 
But fashioned wiser, view I with contempt 

The verbose fodder crunched to feast my mind. 
An Angel. 
Nay, youngling, say not so, for time 

Has proven clement, and thy years 
Count not as yet a mortal's prime. 

Why shouldst thou tire of life, that cheers 
When ably tasted, and when spent 

In noble toilings as thou hast, 
Nursing repose and calm content 

Surely thy joys are joys that last! 
Student. 
Tis false, they queme me not — my brain afire, 
Is goaded by their temptings to aspire 
To spheres of thought above, beyond my reach, 
Which no dry tome or parchment can e'er teach. 
My rhapsodies are boundless, and my flight 
Of fancies soars through chaos and through night. 



AN ANSWER. 235 

Until my will, too frail, pain-checked, is crushed, 
By powers unknown, and all its fevers hushed. 

Angel. 
Student, art rash! and shouldst not strive 
Thy feeble ponderings to drive 
Beyond the limits drawn for man 
By sapient hands on Earth to span. 
Rest thee awhile: or else in Love 
Mayst find the key to bliss above. 

Student. 
Speak not of Love, fair vision, I implore. 
I dreamt its pangs I felt, but now ignore 
Its every meaning, though that myth I blessed 
When, vain, elated loon, I first caressed 
A demon, seraph-faced, of maddening form, 
Whose hot, wet, Hell-drugged kisses, lava-warm, 
With am'rous velvet touchings, to my core, 
Stung; with such joy-lost fervor, that if more 
And more of this soul-wavering delight 
She had refused, I would by passion's might 
Have strangled out caresses from her breath, 
And would have burnt them kiss-scorcht into Death. 
Why did I not — a budding love I gave 
To her already tainted grip: — a slave 
To her one, every wish was I; but when, 
In webbed ardors welded fiercely, then 



236 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

The trait'rous siren loved me — / was all, 
Her God and Universe — and she the thrall! 
And yet, with elfen subtlety, this maid 
My love of loves with infamy betrayed. 
J could not kill her for my dirk atilt, 
Sank in her gallant's weasand to the hilt; 
And ere the reeking blade I had withdrawn 
To spill her lying blood, the wench had gone! 
But now my heart is ironed and free of grief, 
And that is why I sneer at Love's belief! 

Angel. 

Thou shouldst have pardoned since, when time and years 

Have stilled the torrent of thy jaundiced tears. 

What whim unslaked, gnaweth thy nettled breast, 

That stayeth heart's repose, that checketh rest ? 

If love is quenched the envious tide runs deep. 

What are thy evil aims at night, when sleep, 

By febrile recollections baulked, has lost 

Its soothing power; when, on thy pillow tossed, 

The hours seem ages, and the slumber sought 

Unnerves and deadens every wish peace-fraught? 

Can it be hate that grimes thy sleepless eves 

With foul-mouthed yearn, and does the web it weaves 

Of honeyed promise, ravel in thy mind 

A knot of vengeance arduous to unwind ? 



AN ANSWER. 237 

Student. 
No, no, fair vision, my erst hates have flown, 
My ires by toils have dumb and callous grown: 
Hate is a useless passion, twin to crime 
So deem I, but when young it is sublime 
To hate, while every fibre thrills a frame 
Rabid with haughty rage — alas, too tame 
And vimless now! its sting can never vex 
A soul impassible to life's sad wrecks. 
For, if its virus foul could drop by drop, 
Ooze in my heart, my poisoned thought would stop 
And counteract its bitterness by gall, 
That direr venom, servant to my call! 

Angel. 
Thy speech is odious, and thy rattling tongue 
Prateth 'gainst reason; but I know thee young 
And not devoid of feeling, thou canst yet 
All woman's wrongs to thee, and man's forget. 
Thy heart is warm, beneath an algid pride, 
Its olden flame will flicker, and a guide 
In me wilt find, whose counsel will uphold 
And strengthen debile faith — hope-guarded, bold, 
Thou shouldst essay a glorious end to claim, 
For with thy innate genius, wealth and fame, 
Those all-prized treasures will thy trophies be, 
And such a lot depends . . 



238 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Student. 

On whom ? — 

Angel. 

— On thee. 

Student. 
Cherub, thy cautioning cannot avail, 
I come of no foul, rotten stock, to wail 
And sorrow for ambition's sweet, or pine 
To hear the world's opinion on a line 
Or phrasing that I pen, for I prefer 
To sip my life-cup's mingled wine and myrrh, 
In silence, and from all the world conceal, 
The passions and emotions that I feel. 
Call'st thou ambitious one who greeds to rule 
A horde of savage soldiers armed in steel, 
Who straggle to the fray as would a mule 
Kicked at and battered by his master's heel ? 
Deem'st thou ambitious he whose subjects bleed 
And perish by his orders on a field 
Where belching cannon, deaf to race or creed, 
Vomit their terrors till the foemen yield ? 
Deem'st thou ambitious one in pomp arrayed 
With slaves and cohorts at his erst command, 
One who is wealthy-pursed and strong of blade, 
One whose omnipotence awes sea and land? 
If so, he lacketh reason, less his life 



AN ANSWER. 239 

Be one of leniency; for tyrants' sleep 
Is sad and fatal, and a rancorous knife 
Can sound the infamy of hearts most deep. 

Angel. 
Thy soul is gelid to emotion, and 
Thy dogged will, by listlessness unmanned, 
Spurns that which other men would die to gain. 
Surely art born of flesh, thou dreadest pain, 
Thou hast a love, a hate, a pride or fear, 
Some woful loss has blighted thy career. 
Has lack of care and fondness made thee mad ? 

Student. 
No dearth of true affection have I had — 
A hidden grief perchance, but that will dwell 
Within my vitals, till the heats of Hell 
Burn and consume it out, when nerve and blood 
Are dried and scorched by the fiery flood. 

A Phantom. 
Valiantly spoken, youth — I know thy need. 
Thou gloar'st for gold, thy fantasy to lead 
In paths of luxury, for hadst thou power, 
A fortune and a palace at this hour 
Would clothe thy limbs, and would thy head protect, 
While happy, young and reckless, wouldst elect, 
And choose thy mistresses, thy friends and slaves, — 
Rich regal days, is what thy notion craves. 



240 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Student. 

Spirit, thou liest — naught of gold I ask — 

I am no wizard with a baffling mask 

Screening a secret in each blear dull eye; 

All I demand is, as the days roll by, 

Leaving me tranquil in my bitter gloom 

To muse on thoughts oft-weighed, of after tomb. 

Gold to my nature serveth not — its chink 

Sounds dead upon my ear — and when I think 

How other fools adore it, then I laugh, 

And titter cynic o'er the wine I quaff. 

What can I need of gold ? To win a friend ? 

A man who follows me, until I spend 

The last cursed farthing, and who will declare 

That although generous I was hard to bear, 

Full of strange whims, proud, spiteful and perverse, 

Simply 'cause he had naught and I the purse? 

Nay, nay, no metal can e'er buy the scene 

I built in dreams — a landscape autumn-green, 

High lofty mountains, tipped with nitid snow 

Tinted by purple heavens — and, below, 

A cot, white, simple, hidden by a ring 

Of firs and poplars, where the wood-larks sing, 

And purl their joyful hymns when sunbeams stream 

Upon the rustling foliage: — that my dream 

Has been, but now, has faded, chased by cark, 

Leaving me Life, abhorrent, blank and dark. 



AN ANSWER. 

Chorus of Angels. 
On banks of flowers, 
The summer hours 

Invite sweet sleep. 
In dreams of charm, 
Thy soul from harm, 
And evil powers, 
Our wings will keep. 
Student. 

I need no sleep. 
Chorus of Demons. 
On lakes of fire, 
In regions dire 

With us wilt roam ? 
In seas of flame, 
Thy soul can claim, 

Its mute desire, 
With sylph and gnome. 

Student. 
I need no home! 

Phantom. 
I wis thy greed, a riot, hot embrace 
From lips of rose; a lust-paled, upturned face 
With luring eyes, thine eyes' strong glance to pierce, 
Tempests of sighs to quell in torpors fierce. 

R 



241 



242 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

A silken forest of blonde curls to toss 
And tangle round thy fingers, till its gloss, 
Gair, yellow and exciting, tempt thy whim 
In prurient ecstacies to plunge and swim, 
As when the sea-gull, cresting o'er the wave 
Dotes on its bosom's foam, wherein to lave 
Its fruitless passion, while its plaintive shriek 
Implores a fickle love till wings are weak. 

Student. 
Spirit, a parnel's hug I cherish not; 
A strumpet markets out her body's rot 
And plays her foulest comedy to prove 
An absent passion: can such mockery move 
A man to hanker for her venomed press, 
And pay with gold, the gall of her caress ? 
Think'st thou for such pale drazels I would leave 
My fire and room, and lecherous I would grieve 
And blubber like a stripling for a whore 
The trifle of a hundred rakes before ? 
Chorus of Angels. 

The sunbeams spread 

Their fulgor red 

On grove and wood: 

All Nature sings 

Of God all things 

Below, o'erhead, 
Are fair and good. 



AN ANSWER. 

Chorus of Demons. 

The twilight falls, 

Our Master calls, 

His voice through night 

Resoundeth shrill; 

Art stubborn still ? 

What fear appals ! 
O! haste thy flight. 
Student. 
What I loved most was Color, for my eye 
By varied tints and hues of Nature's dye 
Grew ravished. When the blinding sky-blue pours 
Its sheen immaculate on reed-clad shores, 
The lucid water toucht with fulvid streams 
Of golden splendor, sun-kisst, glows and gleams. 
Each bubbling ripple, white as lady's hand 
Dashes, pearled, plastic on the hot red sand 
Of some broad beach, with shells and alga sprent, 
Green, brown, blue, yellow, strangely blent! 
And oh! what velvet tints the elm-tree's bark 
Rugose and gnarry, taketh, when the spark 
Of fire-flies' nacarat twinkling lumes the trunk 
When on huge curving boughs, the linnets, drunk 
With gracious melody, chirp, purl and trill 
From downy throatlets, till their voices fill 
The silent wood, while bird and leaf and rush 
Await that sacred hour, when, white of flush 



243 



244 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

The prying moon — mist-dotted, vapor-ploughed, 
Escapes from 'neath its drapery of cloud, 
And deluges the forest in its grace: 
While, slumb'ring near, the artist's placid face 
Pale, by moon paler, dreams and loves and lives 
By Color's power, and all the bliss it gives — 

Angel. 
In all thy roamings hast thou had no gust, 
No like or no distemper, taste or trust? 
Hast thou in God's grand temples prayed or knelt ? 
Hast thou e'er piety within thee felt? 
When, in the Mosque or Kirk the rites began, 
When quivering voices begged that sins of man 
Would lessen — ? did no inner chord awake 
Proud and triumphant, noble? didst not make 
Some resolution, didst thy doubt repent 
Its sluggishness, didst clamor to give vent 
In virile action to thy backward life . . . ? 

Student. 
No thought as this was in my bosom rife. 
All I enjoyed with ravish was the grace 
Of Titian's glowing virgins, and their face 
One, only face all-holy, filled my heart 
With sweets seraphic, and would ease the smart 
Of terrene unbelief: — as long I gazed 
Upon his glorious painting, color-crazed. 



AN ANSWER. 



245 



But then I thought I loved him, and no love 

On Earth, or Hell below, and Heaven above 

Rivals the contemplation of the Art 

Of Italy's great masters: — why depart 

From such care-calming worship ? — who can paint 

Christ livid, crucified, with halo faint 

Around a thorn-crowned brow like Reni's hand ? 

What is more vivid, truthful, pious, grand 

Of horror ? and of colors blent, the sponge 

Seems sour and swollen: see! the soldiers lunge 

Their barbed spears deep in the withered flesh. 

Do not lorn Mary's tears fall all afresh ? 

Murillo, angel-haunted, wields the gift 

Visions of grace from heavenly clouds to lift. 

His mild Madonna glance, true, pure and bright, 

Equals the stars' in brilliancy of light — 

Only a light of glory, made to bless 

A light of mercy no pale orbs possess .... 

Rubens, of florid touch becharmed me oft, 

His wealthy-bosomed sirens, sinewed soft, 

Denoting strength and suppleness combined, 

Have magnetized my willing eye and mind. 

Van Dyck, with tints of gloom, has fashioned forms 

Alluring by their verity; while swarms 

Of chimeras, and visions, quaintly odd 

Besiege the memory, while dark portraits nod 



246 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Their wrinkled heads, closed in the massive frame, 

And wink triumphant on the signer's name. 

Rembrandt, sad shadows, altars and a pyx! 

The horrent splendors of the crucifix! 

Portraits, and heads, bald, bearded — joy and woe 

Toucht with a glow of winter's rime and snow. 

Watteau! light, fickle airy whims of oil, 

A ball's coquette, a revelry's turmoil, 

Silk, satin, ribbons, flowers and powdered hair, 

A court, a garden, moonbeams here and there; 

Wigged, sworded courtiers, held 'twixt love and fight 

The whole depicted, half in pink, half white! 

Steen, with his simple brush has quemed me vast, 

When, gay of mind, I sought to rouse the past 

Of Holland's dorps, and view his village scenes: 

A burgomeister on a table leans 

Within a cabin clean as falling flakes. 

A kitten by the fire its naplet takes — 

Upon the floor, plump, peach-cheeked children play. 

Near by, the buxom housewife knits away 

While, o'er a pewter tankard, cool with beer 

The father smiles upon the ones so dear . . . 

Ah pass! that paint brought tears: grim Goya's muse 

Other far ghastlier dyes was wont to use. 

Th' Escurial sombre in its stony vale, 

Peopled within its crypt by spectres pale. 



AN ANSWER. 

Blood-clotted pools, wan eyes and haggard looks, 

Clouds gray as twilight, black-rimmed: rooks, 

Gaunt ravens, shades of sorrow, rotting bones, 

The shriek of maiden ravished, and the groans 

Of tortured martyrs; marshes, fenny-dank, 

Hoidens with giggling jaws — the iron clank 

Of gyves rust-eaten, bull-fights, gore and fire, 

Naught save the noxious, horrent, and the dire. 

Fantastic Ribera would oft unhinge 

The bolts of fear-barred thought, and tinge 

His pallid corpses with that bluish touch 

That fills th' expectant worm within with grutch: 

His cult was ugliness; the master's hand 

From horrors brought forth Beauty at command, — 

Beauty victorious in some bleeding Christ, — 

Beauty all potent in his Death unpriced! 

Now, Color as my other loves, submerged, 

In waves of listlessness, by mind-rods scourged, 

Cannot e'en to a moment's joy give birth; 

I live indifferent to its charm and worth, 

And no oil-dabbled picture chaste or lewd 

Can tempt me back unto the muse I wooed . . . 

Angel. 
Pagan of hardened fancies, canst thou sneer 
E'en at thy stage of unbelief, when ear 
And soul are captured by some gentle strain 
Of soothing melody ? hear'st thou again 



247 



DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Without a throb of feeling, tunes that rocked 
Thy infant form to slumber? hast thou mocked 
With senseless tongue the balm of Music's power, 
That abstract love, by gods bequeathed as dower? 
Hath thy heart fluttered when the church-bell's chimes 
Rang out their brazen wealth of holy rhymes ? 
Has not the organ's mellow, measured voice, 
Ever an accent found to please thy choice ? 

Student. 
Angel, the tunes of olden time bring back 
Hosts of harmonious sorrows, sad and black 
As envy: my imprisoned thoughts unbound 
Once more, and free, drink up their well-known sound: 
But then I sudden veer, and flee them fast 
Cursing the tell-tale memories of the past. 
The music of my simmering thoughts console 
My wretchedness, and with my grief condole: 
A music vague and sombre, born of tears, 
A music grave and sad: a phantom leers 
Over each chosen note, and terrifies 
My soul quiescent as the Hell-sounds rise. 
Weber alone — grim thinker — was inspired 
From worlds most nebulous, for he admired 
The strident moanings of the German night, 
Seas of strange melody, so wild of fright 
In all their magic rhythms, new and bold, 
Teeming with weirdities of style untold. 



AN ANSWER. 249 

He of all dreamers spoke in sob and wail, — 
He of all dreamers tore the subtle veil 
Off mystic beauty, and disrobed her form 
Which nude was cold, but by his kissings warm 
Grew docile, and her secret wealth laid bare 
To one who sought the music of the Air — 
The leaflet's whirr, the valley-streamlet's notes, 
Sad melodies from forests, or from throats 
Of night-birds in the Schwarzenwald's deep shade, 
And who of all a mighty concert made — 
Puissant of grace, wonder of sylphic sound 
Sought for by ardor, and by ardor found. 
I understood his vague mellifluous tongue, 
My sceptic heart, his sceptic ditties sung, 
But now all Music's sweets I shun and mock 
And I prefer the music of my clock! .... 

Angel. 
Thou who avowest life is hard to bear 
Findest thou transport in the joy of prayer ? 
Ignorest thou the raptures of a soul 
Invoking Gods whose mercies can console. . . . ? 

Student. 
Angel, thou temptest me, my views are frail 
And bottomless of things terrene: why fail 
In mad essayings to decipher creeds, 
The mystic problem that solution needs 



250 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Of life beyond this life ? — can man assume 
To solve the secrets of the after tomb ? 
E'er to transfuse the soul that in him lives, 
E'er to define the breath his mother gives? 
Science is vast, and brains by thought consume, 
But who can lift the veil of doubt and gloom 
Screening the phantom future like a shroud, 
Leaving all mortals baffled, foiled and cowed. 

I cannot speak 

Angel. 

Believest thou ? — 
Student. 

— In what ? 

A ngel. 
In powers supreme that fix and shift thy lot, 
That either wound or kill, sustain, create, 
That rule thy doings, and command thy fate? 

Student. 

Spirit! a sacrilege thou mayst suspect 
But hark thee! all religions I respect 
As good and worthy, — but believe in none. 
The bronze-skinned savage who adores the sun, 
And bows before the flamant eye in fear 
Should not be scoffed at, if his voice sincere, 
In simple wordings swelleth out in prayer 
To one that warms and feeds him by its glare. 



AN ANSWER. 251 

The Parsees kneeling to their God of Fire 

Ascend with cheerful steps a blazing pyre 

To perish faithful, girt with strong belief; 

Do they not merit for their martyred grief 

An envied life of joys in other spheres, 

As consolation for their worldly fears ? 

Cannot a noble heart in Greek or Turk, 

In breast of Jew, as well as Christian lurk ? 

The struts and splendors of the Orient's rites, 

The pageants, jeweled costumes, countless lights, 

The wailing dervishes with sandaled feet, 

The censers swinging with their perfumes sweet, 

The sumptuous mosques, marvels of Eastern art, 

The tekk£s domed, chiseled in every part 

With crafty hand, till stone resembles lace, 

A glorious tribute, age cannot efface — 

The sensuous music, velvet to the ear, 

Monotonous of rhythm, sad, austere, 

Yet soul vibrating, mystic, gravely sung, 

By throat melodious, and by fervent tongue: 

The stately Iman's robed in white and blue, 

The zaims, defenders, eunuchs, retinue, 

Steel, gold and glory, pomp immense, 

Does not this speak to eye, to soul, to sense, 

Persuading all as loud the muezzin drones, 

"Allah is great, Mahomet's love atones;" 



252 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

Should Moslem faith be jeered at, flouted, cursed, 

If not the best of creeds, is it the worst ? 

Am I to mock the rites of Manitou, 

The power of Siva, Brahma, or Vischnu ? 

The stell£d vales of Delhi and Lahore 

Still celebrate their mercies as of yore. 

Why should we modern unbelievers grin, 

And chuckle o'er a rite we call a sin ? 

Quetzalcoatl's priests and slaves adored 

A brutal god of serpents, grimed, begored, 

While Norseland's brawny warriors sought the fray, 

And corse-strewn fjelds, to prove great Odin's sway, 

Blood — crime and slaughter, be it, but they fought 

And slew with faith — a faith that should be taught 

To our poor shallow-minded priests, who tell 

In verbose sermons that the pains of Hell 

All sinners shall endure, whilst Hell on Earth 

Exists as well as Paradise from birth — 

Their faith is blind and tottering, bought by gold 

Unwarmed by Nature's charms — their prattle cold, 

And nine of ten would use their Savior's curse 

To draw a farthing in their greedy purse. . . . 

The faith of chivalry, the art of Moor 

Will to my fancy greater joys procure 

Than any creed, discussed by changing whim. 

Religions' depths are nebulous and dim, 



AN ANSWER. 



253 



And if I had belief — which I have not, 

Shunning all crumbling ages' rust and rot, 

I would my trust place in the world of art 

Speaking to soul, to spirit, sense and heart. 

What faith was nobler than the faith of gold 

That spurred the ancient architects, untold, 

Unbidden, save by Art's great voice, to toil 

And spread their genius-seed on native soil ? 

Mammoth cathedrals built they, aisled and naved 

Columns on columns, chiseled, wrought, engraved, — 

Poems of granite, symphonies of stone! 

Silent yet soulful, mighty, in the lone, 

Vague twilight of the ages, as they seem 

To stretch their steeples to a God supreme, 

Like two huge giant hands imploring grace 

Far in the deep blue densities of space — 

Chartres, Antwerp, Rheims, of art the choicest flower 

Seville's Giralda, with its rosy tower, 

Toledo, Burgos of the sculptured dome — 

Cordova — Beauvais, Strasbourg, Sens, and Rome, 

Moscow's, St. Basil with its zebraed heights, 

Upsala's grandeur, where the gloom delights — 

A pensive muse — all gems of patient skill 

Erected by a few great men, whose will 

Was strong as tempests, and their faith as strong: 

For well knew they the painful work, and long 



254 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

They planned, and that a century would pass 
Before a form symmetric graced the mass. 
The bliss of witnessing their task fulfilled 
Was not their lot — they knew it — yet unstilled 
Were Faith and Ardor — while the day they died 
The lofty temple grew in strength and pride. 
Oh! that is faith in art! and yet the name 
Of those heroic strugglers, lost to fame 
Is now ignored, save by some monk austere, 
Who reads the church's archives once a year, 
And who perchance may treasure in his mind, 
The name of one who labored for mankind. 

Phantom. 

Art strangely novel, for thou hast no quest 

No wish, no covet; dream'st thou not at best 

Of some fair vision, modeled in thy mind 

Of gnomish beauty, fulvid eyed, to blind 

Thy gaze by rapturous blinkings, green of tint, 

Chasms of smaragd lust — of boiling glint 

What need'st thou ? 

Student. 

Naught. 

Angel. 

What need'st thou ? 

Student. 

Naught, I say — 
The roseate clouds of dawn announce the day; 



AN ANSWER. 255 

Spirits of Good and Evil, here I swear 

That naught of happiness, and naught of care 

Can stir my lethargy; my fibres mute 

Love sleep alone, and food, as would a brute; 

For having lived and seen, my soul is sore, 

Mortals may call me mad, and vile of core 

But all I wish— 

Angel. 

Well speak poor heart of stone! 

Student. 

All that I wish is to be left alone! 



256 DREAMS AFTER SUNSET. 

TOO LATE.* 

A SONG. 

Joy stood upon my threshold mild and fair, 

With lilies in her hair; 
I bade her enter as she turned to go, 

And she said, " No." 

Fortune once halted at my ruined porch, 

And lit it with her torch; 
I asked her fondly, u Have you come to stay ? " 

She answered, "Nay." 

Fame robed in spotless white before me came; 

I longed her kiss to claim; 
I told her how her presence I revered. 

She disappeared! 

Love came at last — how pure, how sweet! 

With roses at her feet. 
I begged her all her bounty to bestow — 

She answered, "No." 

Since then Joy, Fortune, Love and Fame 
Have come my soul to claim; 

I see them smiling everywhere, 
But do not care. 

June, 18S9. 
♦During the short life of the author, writing in many languages over five thou- 
sand poems, " Too Late" was the last written by him. 



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